The Dire Circus
by raining-down-hearts
Summary: The circus is in town and strange things are afoot, not the least of which is the sudden disappearance of Maka's father and horse. When she finds her stolen horse at the circus, her attempt to steal him back goes wrong and a strange red-eyed pianist catches her in the act. Something's very wrong, her father is still missing, and now she's trapped in a terrifying new world.
1. Chapter 1

**Pine **[pahyne], _verb_. 1: to yearn deeply; suffer with longing; long painfully. 2: to be discontented; fret. 3: to feel painful longing or yearning.

* * *

"Father. Father!"

The parent in question poked his fiery head tentatively up over the back of the sofa, looking equal parts disheveled and guilty. "Yes, my little ray of sunshine?"

"Don't you sunshine me," Maka snapped, folding her arms. "Your company last night woke me up this morning. She doesn't know how to shut a door without slamming it, apparently."

He cringed down below the sofa's gold velvet backrest until only his mournful blue eyes were visible. "I bought you a new book," he volunteered finally, when his daughter showed no signs of relenting.

"Really."

"Yes! Yes, I did. It's in my overcoat pocket. Go get it. You'll like it. I'll tell... uh... I'll tell my friend to be a little quieter from now on."

She sent him one final, burning look of reproach before giving in and leaping for his coat. He smiled and settled back down to complete his nap. He hadn't lied; the book was one she'd been dying to find a copy of for months now, by one of her favorite authors, a treatise on Eastern culture and the evolution of their weapons. She ended up on the floor, legs stretched straight out, gnawing on a strand of her hair as she read, and didn't move until hours later, when sunlight creeping across his eyes woke Spirit up. He almost tripped over her.

"Maka? Honey, why are you on the floor?" She didn't move an inch. He stared at her intensely. A full minute passed with no visible motion, and then she turned a page, a quick flip like a hummingbird's wingbeat. "At least she's still alive," he said to the dust motes floating in the sunbeam that had so rudely woken him up. He leaned down to pull gently on a strand of her disheveled blonde hair.

She twitched and blinked several times at him before coming back to earth. "I'm learning about meteor hammers and Genghis Khan. And mounted warfare tactics. It's interesting. What do you want?"

"I was going to see if you wanted lunch," he said patiently, well accustomed to his daughter's obsession with books.

She squinted and put her head to the side, looking from him to her book and back again, and then stood up with a grunt as her stomach rumbled. "I shouldn't have sat on that floor for so long. Ow. God, I'm tired of vegetating in this house."

"Go do something. Take Morvich and ride into town."

She kicked out her legs one at a time, stretching out the kinks in her joints. "I don't want to. I worked him this morning and he was an absolute beast. I'll walk."

He snorted and disappeared around a corner into the kitchen. Pans rattled and something crashed. "Suit yourself. My little tomboy."

"You raised me this way!" she shouted irritably over her shoulder, conveniently disregarding the fact that it was actually mostly her mother's influence responsible for her unbridled temper and somewhat violent tendencies. She snatched her leather satchel and swung out the front door into the crisp, early afternoon brightness. Maybe her footsteps as she turned toward town were more like stomping than anything approaching graceful, but too bad.

She was bored, deathly bored, and her idiot womanizing father may have given her an olive branch in the form of a really interesting book, but she was still bored. It was a thin tenuous thread of ennui that twisted under everything she did lately, a fast undertow lurking under placid waters. She hated it. She hated everything. "I hate you," she told a rock on the road, kicking it. "And you! Featherbrain," she added, pointing venomously at a twittering bird. It stopped twittering for a moment, so palpable was her unhappiness.

Her foul mood continued all the way into town, despite the splendid spring weather and the birdsong that accompanied her the entire way, once the singers got over her initial scolding. When she got there, she didn't know what to do, so she wandered through the outskirts and followed the cobbled main street grumpily to a familiar house. As she went the birdsong gave way to bustling masses of humanity and the clatter and hiss of automobiles and wagons bumping along. It presented a very pretty picture, active and almost festive. She hated it, and she hated herself a little for being so far into the doldrums with no good reason. Her life was going well right now; her father was home, should be home for at least a few weeks, she had free time from her studies for once, and it was spring. It was time to relax, and read, and catch up with her friends, but instead her ornery brain wanted to be depressed over the monotony of it.

Kim opened the door to her knock so fast that it was almost as if she'd known she was coming. "Hi!" she said.

"Hi," Maka said dourly, in clear contrast to her cheerful friend.

"What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with your hair?" Maka shot back as her friend tripped down the stairs and linked elbows with her. Kim's hair was pink today, like cotton candy, or the sunset. Maka surveyed it skeptically as she was hauled through town, narrowly dodging a collision with a carriage wheel. It was fashonably bobbed to her chin, tucked under a snappy blue velvet cloche completed with a gold pin shaped like a carousel horse. It should have been pretty. It wasn't. It clashed, and the pink was ridiculous. The diamond in the horse's eye glittered in an all-too-familiar, devious way, reminiscent of the contrary Morvich when he decided that spring was the perfect time to show off his athleticism, regardless of whether or not she was on his back. She wrinkled her nose at it. It just sparkled back gaily.

"Well?" Kim said at last, twirling a strand of her hair.

"You look like a fairy tale princess," Maka settled on. It was the truth, in a way, and it was nicer than some things she could have said.

"Thank you!" They stopped at a small corner booth in the central market, which was even busier than the streets, packed to the gills with housewives and darting children and shouting salesmen who really hated taking no for an answer. If you believed them, they had the finest wares in the world to sell, from exotic spices to the finest clothing. Maka paused at a stall full of wonderful clicking watches, and if Kim hadn't dragged her away she probably would have taken one apart. She loved machinery, and she cherished a secret wish to own an automobile, but Spirit hated them. It had taken months of alternate begging and fits of rage for him to even let her on a train.

She liked things like those watches, though, things full of tiny, intricate parts. It was so exciting to see how they worked, how all the miniscule pieces worked together in precise harmony to create something greater than themselves. She stumbled over someone else's foot and thought sourly that the people in this blasted town could probably do with taking a page about harmony out of the clockwork's book.

Then a wave of heat blasted her face, sudden and intense, and she wheeled around, yanking Kim with her. "Oh, wow," she breathed. The broadly built blue-haired boy standing across from them in a circle of bystanders looked right at her and winked.

"Like that, huh? More where that came from!" he crowed, executing a rather impressive backflip and sticking the landing perfectly, holding out his hands as he straightened up as if to say, 'Ta da!'

She raised an eyebrow at his enthusiasm. "I didn't see anything to like, I just felt my eyebrows nearly getting singed off," she told him, fighting back a grin. He looked absolutely baffled.

"You didn't see me? I was showing off! How could you miss me? Watch again! Look this time!" He proceeded to bounce around wildly. He was in the oddest clothing she'd ever seen; tight black trousers and a slim cut, long-sleeved black shirt, embroidered with grayish stars around the collar. He was barefoot, too, and looking at his soot-covered feet, she became pretty sure that the black was to hide the ashes, and that the stars had originally been white.

"Okay. I'm looking," she said eventually, deciding to humor him, and he grinned from ear to ear.

"All right! Better prepare yourself, I'm good!" He grabbed a jug from the ground and took a swig, and then, cheeks puffed up like a chipmunk, he lit a match in front of his lips and flames bloomed from his mouth, roaring and writhing like a dragon up into the sky.

"Maka, let go, ow," Kim hissed, and Maka released her friend's arm, only dimly aware that she'd latched on far too tightly. It was incredible. He was breathing fire, like a hero out of a myth, or a god, or a machine.

Then he coughed and the flames died. He started leaping around, flapping his hands, spitting and yowling like a wet cat, and the effect was entirely ruined. He managed some really inventive curses between yelps, though, and she was impressed in spite of herself. Finally he ended up on the ground, whimpering, hands plastered over his mouth. The crowd drifted away, only a few coins landing in the ragged old hat on the ground.

She went over to him and squatted down. "Are you all right?"

He rolled his eyes dramatically and drummed his heels on the ground, shaking his head. "Mmpf," he declared, wincing.

"It burned your mouth, didn't it." Nod. "What fuel is that?" Her hand inched towards the jug. "Can I look-"

"Nope!" he said, sitting up very fast and swiping the jug out of her reach. "Circus secret. Ouch. Ouch. I should never have tried this fire thing. It's not what I'm good at. I mean, I'm good at everything, just not this. I just thought- I mean, everyone like fire, right?"

"Oh, that makes perfect sense," she said in amusement. The circus comment explained his vibrant hair, at least. She'd never been to one, but she'd read about them, and honestly couldn't say she approved. The way her books presented them, they were havens for criminals, misfits, and swindlers with no ethics, and generally didn't treat their animals well at all. This boy seemed all right, though, if a bit egotistical.

He rubbed his eyes and came away with black rings of soot around them that gave him the impression of a startled raccoon. He opened and closed his reddened mouth a few times, squinting as if it hurt, then shrugged and stood up, lips thinning as he noticed he'd lost his audience. "Damn."

She smiled sympathetically. It had to be hard, living on the road, crossing your fingers that you'd make enough money to eat that day. "Sorry. Go to the marketplace on the north side of town, it's really busy on Saturdays, usually. You should do well there. Just don't tell anyone I sent you if you burn it down."

"Hey, thanks!" he said, far too loudly. She wondered if perhaps he was partially deaf. He snatched up his precious jug of fuel and started to trot off, but then stopped, wheeling around to gape at her. "Do I know you from somewhere?"

She frowned and said diplomatically, "I, uh, I think I would remember meeting you."

"Oh." He eyed her calculatingly, as if he knew something she didn't, and she held onto the strap of her satchel a little more tightly, just in case he tried something funny. Instead, he dug around in one pocket for a moment and then thrust a wrinkled yellow piece of paper at her. "Here. Come see us. Tell them you know Black Star and they'll let you in half off."

Before she could even unfold the paper, he was gone, merging seamlessly with the crowds. Kim was across the street, apparently angling to get a cute boy to pay for her drink, so Maka pressed the wadded paper to a wall and scraped the side of her hand across it to smooth it out.

It was an advertisement. Ornately inked letters across the top proclaimed that the Dire Circus was in town, for a limited time only, three miles west from the main city. She looked closer and realized, with an odd drop in her stomach, that the letters were shaped from bones. Below them was an illustration of a man, far too tall and slim, with an angular face painted entrely in vertical stripes that matched his clothing. He was leaning forward, a knife in one hand and four more in the air above him, spinning artfully. Behind him were the eyes of a beast she didn't know, drawn to look as if they were staring directly at her out of the cover of shadows, no matter which way she moved. It was unsettling. What kind of circus would give these flyers out? They certainly didn't encourage attendance. They were downright creepy. She folded it neatly and stuck it in her bag to show her father later, then followed the trail of boys sadly shaking out empty wallets that was sure to lead to Kim.

When she found her, she was idly examining a storefront window full of glittering dresses. "Hey, sorry, that boy nearly lit the town up," Maka told her.

"Yeah, after you ripped my arm off," Kim teased. "I can't believe they're allowed to do that kind of thing, right in the middle of town. It's not safe."

"Right?" Maka agreed. It really hadn't been. She took a gander at the dresses. They were gorgeous, delicate, glimmering creations that reminded her of dewdrops on spiderwebs, and they were quite skimpy, really, showing shoulders and dipping low in the front and the back, swinging gently right above knee length. They were dancing dresses, meant to be worn out on the town. Maka felt herself inching to the display before she stopped herself. Those dresses weren't for flat-chested bookworms like her. She wouldn't look right in them. A dress that pretty was for a pretty girl, one who painted her lips and wore feathers in her hair, who flashed the garters holding up her silk stockings and knew all the steps to every dance- not her.

"Pretty, right?" Kim said tragically, plastering her palms against the glass, quite uncaring of the smudges she would leave. "I want one."

"Where would you wear it?"

"Mass."

"You're joking. That is the least appropriate thing I've ever seen. If you wore it into a church you'd get struck by lightning."

Kim snorted irreverently. "Yeah." She kept eyeing them, though.

Something occurred to Maka. "You're Catholic?"

Kim blinked at her in a sideways fashion, suddenly looking very mysterious. "Sure. Come on, let's eat. I'm hungry. I don't want you to keep me prisoner in a dusty old bookstore like you did last week."

"It was interesting!" Maka protested, but she followed.

They ate, and when Kim left to go home, to do whatever it was she always had to do in the evenings, Maka found herself wandering around the town aimlessly. She really should have been heading back, not in the least because it wasn't a fantastic idea to walk home in the dark, but she knew the way, and she could take care of herself. Her mother had taught her to box almost as soon as she could walk, after all, regardless of how much her father moaned and cried and worried for her.

Thinking of her mother slowed her steps to a listless drag. She missed her mother ferociously, with a deep-down pain that hadn't faded at all since she'd left. The edge of it had dulled, to the point where she could go about her day without having to hide her tears, but it was still there and she was fairly certain it always would be.

Her father felt it too, but he'd chosen to soothe it with women and travel, rather than with studies and independence, like she had. He had a great job, and he got to go all over the country on the trains that he hated so much, consulting with various army generals on training exercises and weaponry and whatever else soldiers needed. He loved it, and made good money, but he was gone often, and sometimes he even got injured on the job. Just last month he'd come home with a broken arm for her to fuss over and yell at him about. It was why he was home for so long this time, waiting for the bone to knit. She both loved and hated when he was home for more than a week or so. On one hand, it broke the loneliness, and she was always glad to see him doing all right, but after a while she started to run into more and more of his nighttime guests, which made her think of just why exactly her mother had been driven to leave them, and she found herself brimming with anger. Once she'd even dumped a pitcher of lemonade on one of his women. It hadn't ended well.

She only discovered where her feet had led her when she heard a familiar raucous voice proclaiming god-like skill and caught a glimpse of hair shining almost purple in the light of the streetlamps. Had it really gotten so late without her noticing?

He saw her immediately and gave her a look she couldn't read, not even a little, but it didn't stop his act. It seemed he'd given up on the firebreathing, though not without some mayhem, judging by the ragged holes burned into his shirt. He was holding a sword that looked entirely real, gleaming innocently, and the crowd around him was oddly quiet.

Her curiousity got the better of her and she wriggled her way to the front of the pack, thankful for once that she was small. The boy tilted his head back and raised the sword over his head with a grand flourish- and then he proceeded to stick it down his throat, slowly, carefully, with painstaking slowness. No one around her moved, possibly no one breathed; they were spellbound by his voluntary impalement, by his nonchalant smiling at death. Maka almost shrieked, but put a hand over her mouth at the last moment. This was incredible. It just kept going, down, down, an impossible amount, and he seemed perfectly fine with it, eyes trained on the faint beginnings of stars unveiling themselves above him.

The hilt touched his lips, and the process reversed, though the tension didn't. A man next to Maka breathed profanity in a quiet, awed tone, and a woman on the other side of her looked pale to the point of fainting. They didn't leave, though. Was this the magic of the circus? She put a hand in her pocket and touched the flyer gingerly, as if it would bite her.

Then it was done, and he twirled the sword at the dumbstruck circle of people with an engaging grin, showing more teeth than she would have thought possible.

"It's fake," someone said blasphemously.

His smile remained, though one eyebrow inched upward. "The great Black Star doesn't need to rely on trickery! I'm just that good!" He held out a finger and ran it across the edge of the blade, then held it up, spinning slowly to show everyone the scarlet trickle running down his palm and waggling his eyebrows. Silence held them all tight for a moment, then coins started raining down on him, a metallic shower, most of them missing the hat, but he didn't seem to care. Maka turned around and made her way swiftly through the cheering mass, heading home as fast as she could walk and thanking god she'd worn her boots that day instead of sandals. She was disturbed. He was so full of life, so young and buoyant, and yet he chose to make a living by risking his life. She didn't understand it, and she didn't like the chills it put in her spine. She thought of the bestial eyes on the flyer and shuddered.

Her father was sorting the mail when she came in, and his eyes narrowed immediately. "What's up, buttercup?" was how he chose to ask why she was bright red and panting. She'd run the last mile, which wasn't much fun in a skirt.

"There's this awful circus in town," she said plaintively. "I met a boy who swallowed a sword. A big sword. A sword! Right down his throat! How can people be so stupid?" She flopped down on the armchair opposite him and glared thunderously at the floor. "I wish I was back at school. I just- augh!"

Spirit goggled at her, one hand frozen halfway through ripping an envelope. "The circus," he said carefully.

"Yes. Here, look." She handed him the flyer, just as wrinkled by now as when Black Star had initially handed it to her. Her father glanced at it casually, then tossed it on the pile of opened, discarded mail building up next to him.

"Strange. So how did the rest of your day go, pumpkin?"

"Don't call me that. Fine. I don't know. Kim's hair is pink now. She's Catholic, did you know that? I would have never guessed, she's so money hungry and mean all the time to people."

He hummed absently, apparently fully engaged in whatever letter he was reading, and she threw up her hands and stalked off to bed, muttering angrily under the whole way.

Behind her, Spirit closed his eyes, rubbing absently at his healing arm, just yesterday released from the cast; the woman who'd so rudely woken Maka that morning had been a celebration of getting the blasted thing cut off. When he heard his daughter's door slam upstairs, he pounced on the yellow paper.

"Dire Circus," he read out loud, looking grim and tracing the skeletal letters with one finger. "Been too long, Lord." He sat there until very late, brooding in the moonlight.

* * *

Maka woke up early the next morning. She was wide awake almost immediately, with none of the usual in-between grogginess between sleep and alertness. It felt like she hadn't slept at all. She stared at her ceiling for a while, covers pulled to her chin against the morning chill, and then stretched an arm over the side of her bed to fish inside her satchel.

She rolled over onto her stomach as she opened the small, dark green book she'd pulled out. It was more of a scrapbook than anything else, full of pictures and scrawled notes rather than neat, dated entries, but she still thought of it as her journal. Her mother had given it to her on her ninth birthday, just before she left.

It was a photograph of her mother that Maka flipped to, pasted to the inside of the front cover. Even in black-and-white Kami looked beautiful, like a film star on vacation, smiling crookedly with her hair blown charmingly askew around her face.

The twinge came back the longer Maka looked at it, wondering where her mother was and who she was smiling at now, so she crawled reluctantly out of her warm bed and pulled on the jodhpurs that had so scandalized the town the first time she'd worn them in public, a loose shirt and her knee-high riding boots. She'd never ridden sidesaddle and she never intended to. Her mother hadn't, and it had been even more inappropriate in her day, so all the gossipy harridans who clucked and fretted when she rode past them could just deal with it. Why sacrifice balance, comfort and control for something as arbitrary as 'proper behavior'? No reason she could see.

Tying her hair up, she was halfway through the barn to Morvich's paddock and savoring the smells of horse and hay when she stopped in her tracks. Something was wrong. Her skin was tingling, and not from the brisk air. She growled and jogged the rest of the way.

No bright brown eyes greeted her, no alert red ears perked up at her approach. Morvich was gone. She ran into the pasture and around the perimeter, but the fence wasn't breached, so she dashed back into the barn and flung open the door to the tack room. His saddle and bridle were gone too. Her stomach twisted. They didn't lock the gates to their property because they were so far out of town, and really, they'd never seen a reason to. He wasn't a valuable horse. He was unregistered, a grade gelding out of no one, by no one, purchased by her father on a whim from some farmer.

But he was hers, her best friend, whose mahogany mane had patiently absorbed many tears over the past few years, so she ran faster than she ever had before into the house. "Father!" she bellowed, pounding up the stairs. She kicked his door furiously. "Wake up! Now, you lazy beast! I swear to god, if you're with a woman I'll flay you!"

He didn't answer, though, so finally she crossed her fingers that he wasn't occupied with anyone and opened his door. He wasn't there.

She stood there blankly for a second, then began working her way through each room in their small house, hands pressed to her stomach to quell the bad feelings lurking there. They were all empty.

She went back outside and sat down on the front step, head in her hands. Her father wouldn't have taken Morvich on a ride, and not in the least because he was a terrible horseman; his arm was still sore, she knew it by the way he'd been favoring it. But facts were facts, her horse was missing before he even got his breakfast, and so was her father, who absolutely always left her a note when he went out, usually scrawled with smiley faces and hearts between the words. Yet there was no note.

She wasn't entirely sure how long she sat there, stewing and worrying. By the time she heard hoofbeats, the sun was almost directly overhead. As soon as her father came into sight, gripping Morvich's reins one-handed in a way that told her just how much his arm must be aching, all the fear turned into anger.

"You! You! You!" was all she could get out.

"Horsefeathers," Spirit muttered, wincing as she stalked up to them. He swung down from the saddle on the off side, deftly placing Morvich between her and him.

"You!" she said again, clenching her fists. "I thought he got stolen! You never ride him! You didn't leave a note! God, I- you- did you even feed him before you took him out?"

He nodded dumbly, taken aback by her shrieks. She pressed her fists to her temples, where an ache was developing. He held the reins out to her and she took them with a sigh, because she knew that he knew she would force herself to be calm around her horse, and was using that fact to cool her down.

"Baby, I'm sorry," he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. She slid a hand under Morvich's mane and rubbed softly, giving her father a more thorough once-over. He looked absolutely exhausted, dark blurs under his eyes, and if she wasn't mistaken he was still wearing the suit he'd had on last night, which was not exactly fit for a morning's ride.

"What's going on?" she said finally, loosening Morvich's girth a few holes. He stretched his neck out and shook throroughly, rattling the saddle, then nudged her with his nose. She obliged him and scratched his sweaty bits under the bridle straps, pinning her father with her very best glare, making it clear that she knew something was afoot and she wouldn't let him go until he explained.

He squirmed. "Honey, I was just tired of sitting at home, I-"

"Don't lie to me," she said ominously. "You've lied plenty before."

He made a face at her insinuation. They didn't talk about what he'd done to her mother, the other women, the falsehoods and betrayals. It was a line that they both knew could mean the end if it were crossed, but she'd come close. "Ah, darling, look. It was a business emergency, and that's the truth. I'm sorry I didn't leave a note, and I'm sorry I took Morvich, but it was urgent and I didn't want to walk. And yes, I fed him. All right, sweetums? I'm sorry. Papa loves you, you know that, right?" By the end of it, he was positively wheedling and giving her his best puppy-dog eyes.

"Right. Sure. Fine." She wasn't sure she believed him, or rather, she had a funny feeling he was leaving some important bits of the story out, but it would do for now. "I'll put him up. Go rest your arm." She took Morvich into the barn and began to untack him, hoping the familiar routine would quell the unpleasant prickles in the back of her mind. Her father had never lied to her about anything bigger than Santa Claus, never in her whole life that she could remember, but now he was dancing right around one, and she wanted to know why.

Once her horse was safely back in his paddock, she went back into the house fully prepared to get the full story from Spirit, but she couldn't find him, not until she knocked on his bedroom door.

"Come on in, honey," he called distractedly. She opened the door and her mouth fell open. He still hadn't changed his clothes, but he was busily stuffing things inside his luggage.

"You're leaving already? Your arm's still sore. I saw it."

He didn't stop packing. "I know, sweetheart, but this is a big job and there's no one else who can do it. I need to- to make it to the train station on time, I can't miss this."

She caught the stutter in his words and pounced. "Train station, huh? What aren't you telling me? Where are you really going?"

"Maka, I cannot and will not tell you anything else. Let it go. I'll be back in a day or two, tops," he said with finality. Beyond his tone, it was his usage of her given name, rather than an overly sweet endearment, that underlined his seriousness.

"Oh."

He paused, then groaned, apparently struggling with himself. "I'm not taking a train. I'm taking Morvich again. But he'll be fine, I'll take good care of him. Okay?"

"Oh," was all she said, twisting her hands together convulsively, before leaving and holing herself up in her room. It wasn't until late that evening that the silence of the house told her he'd left without saying goodbye.

* * *

Three dreary days went by, peppered with gloomy clouds and tepid, fitful rain that perfectly matched her mood. He wasn't back yet. Another two days passed before she began to get really worried. By the sixth day of her father's absence, she was bouncing off the walls and gnawing her nails to ragged stumps.

It was while pacing the living room and hunting vainly for a book she hadn't yet read that she came upon the Dire Circus flyer. The eyes of the creature lurking behind the striped man met hers and beckoned. She was tired, she was scared, and she was desperately worried about her father and her horse. She pictured them locked up in some army base, scared and confused, and wanted to cry. So instead, driven by things she didn't understand, she went to the circus. Maybe she wanted to absorb some of that insouciant confidence the sword-swallower had displayed.

It wasn't a long walk to it, following the setting sun westward alongside chattering families and rumbling motorcars. It was dusk, so she saw the glow of it long before the tents came into sight. When she actually saw it, she froze.

It was lit up magnificently, every corner ablaze with tiny dancing lights strung up, and the tents billowed up like poisonous mushrooms, every pattern imaginable, but the largest, standing proud in the center, was striped with scarlet and deep black. A massive silver skull topped it, looking almost merry as it overlooked the incoming crowds. The noise was unbelievable. Underneath the excited talking, music drifted, tinny and piped from somewhere she couldn't see, and under that was the sound of animals. Something trumpeted, something roared, and she found herself wondering just how strong the cages were. There were scents, too, food, the hot wild musk of animals, and something smoky she couldn't place. It was overwhelming, it was chaos.

It was also eerily beautiful, in a vital messy way, like an overgrown jungle. She stood in line outside the ticket booth, once she finally found it, and even the booth was beautiful. It was painted as slickly scarlet as the stripes on the main tent, slashed with streaks of glittering blue, and a band of carved animals cavorted around the base of it, lions and giraffes and unicorns, all of which had very long fangs.

When she stepped up to buy admission, she had to force her mouth to work, and when she spoke it came out in a squeak. "Hi. I, uh, I was told to- I know Black Star. He said I'd get a discount?"

The tall, dark-skinned woman inside the booth pursed her lips. She was wrapped up in icy white bandages, looking like a malevolent zebra, but even under the wrappings it was easy to tell she was gorgeous. "Black Star, huh?"

"Yes." Maka swallowed hard and white-knuckled the strap of her bag.

The woman looked at her with dark eyes. Maka felt like she was under a very wise microscope.. "Hmm. All right, then, doll. Fifty cents for you." She held out her hand, which was bandaged to the last joint of her fingers, leaving only gilded nails visible. Maka pressed the coins into her palm carefully, not sure if she was injured under the wrappings, and not wanting to hurt her if she was. "My name's Mira. Nice to meet you. Enjoy." When she smiled, it was genuine, crinkling the corners of her eyes, and Maka smiled back instantly. She felt more comfortable already. Obviously this woman worked her for a reason; despite her appearance, she had a way of a person at ease.

"Thank you," Maka answered. She took the ticket Mira handed her. It was ivory, like bone, with a black stamped number on it; she was the hundred and seventh person to enter the circus tonight, apparently. Maybe she shouldn't have felt so sorry for Black Star. At a dollar a head, they were doing well here.

"Main show starts in twenty, in the big tent," Mira called after her. Maka lifted a hand in thanks and headed towards it. If it started in twenty minutes, and the place was this crowded already, she probably would have to hurry to get a seat. She passed two tiny people of indeterminate gender, dressed identically, with overlarge eyes peeking out from under caps, sitting quietly on display in front of gawping people. That wasn't nice, for them to get stared at like creatures in a zoo. She pressed on, following the music and the winking silver skull rising above everything else, but stopped to blink at a bosomy blonde woman with an eyepatch lifting a bench with four laughing men on it over her head, as if they were light as air. Now that was a show. She looked for Black Star, but didn't see him.

The tent was crowded, and she had to use her small size to her advantage to get inside. Once she did, it was another world. The inside of it was pure black, punctured here and there with small holes that let in the flickering lights from outside; she recognized the Little Dipper and realized they were constellations. Someone near the front stood up and she darted in and took their seat. If they were dumb enough to leave this close to showtime, well, they deserved to have their prime real estate stolen.

The music was bothering her. It was soft, but she couldn't escape it, and she couldn't figure out where it was coming from. There was something off about it; it was a variation on a popular piece, but darkened, feral, turned on its head. It was obviously not a recording, like the tunes near the entrance had been, but she couldn't see a piano anywhere.

The seats were essentially long stairs, rows of benches really, circled around a large, central open space bordered with a short black fence tipped with tiny lights that was probably more to keep the crowd out than anything else. It was the flickering of those lights that cued in the masses to the beginning of the show, and silence fell almost immediately. She felt her breathe catch, entirely instinctively. The aura here was incredible. Adrenaline was fizzling in her veins and nothing had even happened yet.

The lights all went out, leaving everyone in heart-stopping darkness, and then a single circle of illumination from somewhere up above fell onto the middle of the stage area. A man was there, even though he hadn't been just a second ago, tall and wreathed in a ragged black cloak. His face was covered in a mask, vaguely skull-like in the round empty eye sockets and bare lipless teeth, but she didn't think it was supposed to look fully human, not with that distorted shape. She squinted and felt the hair on her neck stand up, because it was so perfectly crafted that it looked real. It was textured like bone, articulated at the mandible like a real skull, and the teeth were irregular and slightly stained exactly like a real person's. The fragile frills in the nose hole even looked authentically varied. His eyes were invisible behind it, and it didn't move when he began to speak.

His words boomed out, loud enough for every person to hear, but his tone was cheerful. He sounded as if welcoming them here was the high point of his day. "Greetings! I am pleased to welcome you, one and all, to the final performance the Dire Circus will put on here. Your city has been gracious, and we thank you for your patronage. The first act will begin in just a moment." He turned as if to go, the cloak wisping lightly up around him as if it were alive, but then paused dramatically. "Please prepare yourselves to see death-defying acts of courage, ready yourselves to be more entertained than you ever have. If anyone has a weak constitution, we advise, for your own health, that you leave now." With that rather foreboding warning, he left, ducking out under a sheeted-off corner of the tent she hadn't noticed before. What a dismal sort of thing to say, she thought. He surely had a flair for showmanship.

The first few acts were more cutesy than anything, and she found herself a little disappointed, even if the crowd liked it. There were dogs in costumes and clowns falling over and drenching each other with water. Yes, the dogs were unbelievably well trained, but this wasn't exactly death-defying. The unseen piano player kept up the whole time, matching his or her unearthly melody perfectly to the silliness going on in the ring, punctuating each joke with a trill of notes not unlike a chuckle.

It wasn't until the dogs and clowns were clearing out for the next act that she saw the piano. It was tucked far into a corner of the tent, and it was pitch black with no shine to it whatsoever, which explained why she hadn't seen it before. It blended perfectly with the walls. Whoever was playing it was dressed all in black, too, and all she could see from this distance was pale hands flying across the keys like spiders, and hair equally as pale. They turned their head for a moment- even though the hair was short, she couldn't tell the gender for sure- and she caught a glimpse of a dark red mask, featureless and plain. Why would someone with such magic in their fingers want to play anonymously?

Then a split opened in the opposite side of the tent and three horses entered, two palominos and one dappled gray, halfway through the change to solid white. They were loose, entirely at liberty, and she thought for a moment they'd escaped until a woman crawled up the side of the gray. She'd been clinging to his off side as he circled, invisible to the crowd. Her hair was long and deeply black, streaming out proudly like a flag as she waved happily to the crowd, sitting backwards and bareback on the leading horse with an ease and balance Maka immediately envied. As she and her horses came around the ring again, perfectly in harmony with each other, it became evident that what had seemed like a spotted bodysuit was actually tattoos, covering her arms and legs. The crowd roared appreciatively, and not just at her revealing outfit. Those tattoos were incredible. They looked almost alive. She saw a tiger on once shoulder, and a mermaid on one calf, but the rest were dark blurs.

The flapping of the place they'd entered from caught Maka's eye for just a moment, and she gasped. It was only a split second look, just a moment, but she knew in her marrow that she'd seen Morvich on the other side of that tent. She hadn't seen who was holding him, whether or not her father was with him, but that sea-horse shaped blaze on his chestnut face, the white sock on his right front- she couldn't mistake those markings, not in a million years. That was her horse, here in this crazy madhouse. Had they stolen him? Had her father been abducted on his way out of town, or murdered?

She was on her feet before she had even made a conscious decision, slithering past the other seated people in her row without making time for apologies and darting outside. She ran like her feet had wings, around the massive curve of the tent, ducking around a few startled looking people meandering about. The damn tent was huge. She was almost all the way around, almost all the way to her horse, when someone stepped in front of her.

"Whoa! You're not allowed back here! Sorry, but-" She crashed into them, unable to stop in time, and they both hit the ground hard.

"Ouch," she wheezed, rolling off them and shaking her head, feeling stunned. Something blue blurred in front of her and she blinked hard to clear her vision. "Black Star?"

He sat up. "You! Girl. Girl from the city. Blondie. Hi. What the hell are you zooming about for? Did the act scare you?"

"As if," she scoffed. "Look, I don't know what the heck is going on, but I saw my horse. My horse! Outside the tent, I mean, and I don't know what exactly is going on, but he's mine and he's my property, my father had no right to sell him to you, if that's even what happened- if you people stole him, I swear to god I'll-"

"Calm down," he snapped, standing up and raking a hand through that ridiculous hair. "You- crap. Crap. Look, you're obviously mistaken. First of all, we don't steal. Never."

"Oh, yeah, sure," she retorted, standing up as well and going toe to toe with him, pale with rage. He wasn't much taller than her, so she could snarl at him very effectively. "He's mine! My horse! And what have you done with my fathe? They were together! They've been missing! You take me back there right now, mister, or-"

"Or what?" he barked, eyes narrowing. He didn't back down an inch. "What are you gonna do, little girl?"

She growled wordlessly, stomped on his instep as hard as she could, and then dashed away. His long howl rose and fell behind her and she felt grim satisfaction. Thought she was a weak little girl, did he? Ha! She showed him people couldn't just steal her horse and get away with it. Whatever the hell was going on, whatever these people had done to her father, she'd find out. She'd rescue them.

She passed colorful wagons and knew she was close. This was obviously where the performers lived. Luckily no one else tried to stop her. They must all be busy setting up for their acts in the big top. Finally she caught the familiar scent of horses and then there he was, her shiny red horse, regarding her calmly from inside a makeshift stall. She almost cried. He looked well, he'd obviously been taken care of, thank god. "Come on," she whispered. "Let's get you out of here." The big scarlet and black tent was right beside them, maybe twelve feet away, but no one was going in and out at the moment. She had to move fast. A halter and lead were hanging up beside him, and she was inside the stall in a heartbeat, buckling them on him as fast as she could, although her fingers were shaking. Why hadn't Black Star caught up with her yet? She felt like eyes were on her and looked around wildly as she led Morvich out, only to find her gaze drawn to the silver skull gleaming atop the tent. "Don't look at me, he's mine," she told it, gulping. Morvich had caught her tension and was prancing, throwing his head. She snapped the lead rope firmly. "No."

They only made it halfway out of the maze of tents and wagons before someone materialized in front of her. She yelped in spite of herself, spinning and yanking Morvich harder than she should have, but a firm hand gripped her bicep like a rock. "Let me go," she sobbed, peering into the shadows around them as if help would somehow come. "He's mine! Where's my father? Where's Spirit Albarn? What's going on here?"

The blank red mask regarded her emotionlessly, and she realized with tight clenching terror that the eyes beneath it were just as red. Her struggles were useless; the piano player was strong. Why wasn't he in the tent, playing? She was going to get murdered, dumped in a ditch just like her father probably was, and no one would ever know.

One hand rose to push the mask up onto the ragged white hair, revealing a lean, angular face. Under her panic she noticed that he was handsome despite his strange coloring- it was a boy, after all, around her age, and it was almost impossible for her to believe that someone with red eyes could have played the piano in that tent, so angelically, so perfectly. He looked her up and down scornfully. "It's intermission. Bad time to try and steal from us, hmm? Plenty of people for Black Star to send after you."

"I'm not stealing," she said hysterically, unable to fight him like she wanted while keeping hold of Morvich, who was wide-eyed, circling around them nervously. She did kick him, though. He didn't seem to care. "He's mine! He's my horse! He was with my dad!"

"Spirit Albarn," he said suddenly. "That's your father, you said?"

"Yes!" She took one hand off the lead rope and aimed a blow at his stomach, but he twisted aside, though he seemed surprised. She couldn't do much, thanks to her stupid high strung horse wriggling around.

He caught her fist, then, and forced her to let go of the lead rope. Morvich shot away immediately into the darkness and she screamed. "Tsubaki will catch him, don't worry, little thief," he said sadistically, twisting her wrists around expertly and putting her on her knees from the pain. She hissed between her teeth at him like a hunting cat, and he just scowled.

"Let me go. He can't run around here. He'll get hurt, or someone else will," she said finally, trying to appeal to his sensible side, desperate for her horse to be safe again.

He smiled, then, sideways and wry, and she sucked in a startled lungful of air at the sight of his teeth. They were jagged, pointed, like a shark. He closed his mouth immediately, lips twisting. "I told you, Tsubaki will grab him. She probably already has. You are going to come with me, and if you try anything I will be forced to hurt you. Understand?"

She nodded, though it burned. This had all gone wrong. She should have just bided her time, gone to the police, but instead she'd dived in like a moron and now god only knew what these people would do to her. He hauled her to her feet roughly and started off, pulling her forcefully after him.

"Where are you taking me?" she said as he shoved her around a vibrantly blue wagon decorated with spinning crystals.

He sneered at her. "To see Lord Death. We don't take kindly to thieves here. Better start praying."

* * *

FOOTNOTES

1: Morvich is the name of the horse who won the 1922 Kentucky Derby, an underdog, described as an 'ugly cripple who no one thought could win' until he did. I thought the name would be appropriate for Maka's gelding, since the story of this setting is based on the roaring '20s.

2: When Maka says Morvich is by no one, out of no one, she is referring to his lack of a pedigree or registration. A horse is 'by' their sire/father and 'out of' their dam/mother. It's basically horse talk for their parents. She's saying that he has no valuable bloodlines.

3: Jodhpurs are a kind of riding pants, popularized for women in this decade, though it took a while.

4: 'Horsefeathers' is a mild curse.

5: One of the circus horses is described as 'gray, halfway to white' because very few horses are born white. I could get into the genetics of it, but it's boring and academic. Just know that most of the adult horses you see that are pure white were actually born a different color and grayed out to being 'white' over several years. :) Cool, right? You get all kinds of different colors in one horse!

* * *

**Author says:** Hi everyone! I'm working on the ending to 'The Cost of Lamentations' right now too, don't worry, but I felt like putting this up now. It's set in an alternate universe that is based on the 1920's, but it won't be exact.

Expect Maka and Soul and everyone to be a bit OOC, since, after all, this is an alternate universe. They will still be themselves, just used to a different worl, and Soul in particular will be different, but the reasons as to why (basically some things he's been through) will be explained later on.

The definition at the beginning of the chapter will be explained in a while. ;) Maybe they'll give you a hint as to something that happens in the chapter, maybe it won't.

This is something new for me, so I would really really really love reviews, good or bad! I want to know what you guys think. I've never done an AU story before. Thank you so much for reading and I hope you all were entertained!


	2. Chapter 2

**Grudge **[gruhj], _noun. _1: A persistent feeling of resentment, esp. due to some cause, such as insult or injury. 2. Planned or carried out in order to settle a grudge.

* * *

Since she was free of her blasted airhead horse, she decided she might as well show this fanged ill-tempered pianist a thing or two. She went limp as a wet rag, used the dead weight of her body to break his hold on her, led with a quick elbow to his ribs and then, as he doubled halfway over with a wheeze, she followed with a swift and deliberate uppercut to his jaw. He folded like a freshly cut daisy and she beamed at him as he twitched on the ground. At least one thing in this stupid rescue attempt had gone right.

Sadly, she had miscalculated. He just barely managed to hook a finger in her bootlaces as she moved to leave, but he hung on tenaciously. "Let go, admit defeat," she squealed, kicking her captured boot and hopping on her free foot in an attempt to shake him. If she broke his finger, well, it was just too- but then she remembered that music, those sounds, alive and throbbing with beauty.

So she paused, just for a moment, frozen to indecision by the memory of what the finger she was about to crack with a good twist of her ankle could create, and in that moment he was on his knees and had slammed a fist precisely and angrily into her diaphragm.

It was now her turn to writhe on the ground, apparently, though she looked a lot less dignified doing it than he'd managed to be. She was drooling as she turned into a black hole, desperately trying and failing to breathe, and he wasn't even bothering to take advantage of having knocked the breath out of her. He was just rubbing his chin and making a heinous face down at her. It wasn't until she blinked spots from her vision and happened to look at his shoes, surprisingly heavy and well-worn work boots for a musician, and saw the hilt of a knife rising ominously out of one, that she began to feel truly and deeply afraid.

With those eyes like burning coals he saw her expression change, saw her lock onto that hidden blade, and he snatched her up immediately, dragging her upright as she hitched and gasped and staggered, pinning her arms behind her and frog-marching her forward, holding so tight this time that she knew she wouldn't be able to break free. "I told you. Don't try anything," he rumbled in her ear. She was still having trouble breathing, but not merely from his well-placed blow anymore. Now it was a combination of terror and fury, at both this evil, evil circus and at herself, for jumping into this blindly and alone. She knew, she'd read, that these people didn't follow laws. They didn't need to. They were in disguise half the time anyway, they picked up and left any time it took their fancy, and they protected each other to the death. Circuses were bubbles of darkness that traveled outside the normal laws of the land and now here she was, deep in the heart of one. She felt sick, and she didn't fight anymore as he shoved her onward through the maze of wagons.

Black Star appeared on her right, so suddenly that she squawked. "Soul!" he said randomly, out of nowhere. These people were insane. Was he trying to cast a spell or something? Was he praying to some heathen god?

"What?" the boy holding her snarled.

She blinked, processed. He'd answered. His name- his actual name was Soul? Then again, nothing in this godforsaken place should surprise her. They were willing to capture and assault a seventeen year old girl without even listening to her side of the story. She chose to overlook the fact that she'd been caught redhanded with what they seemed to think was their property, and that she'd gone after Black Star first.

Black Star seemed like he was about to say something, eyeing the deep dimples in the flesh of her arms where Soul's fingers were digging in, but then he noticed something else and his brows rose. "She got you too, huh?" The boy pushing her forward didn't say anything, but Black Star chortled and linked his arms together behind his head, walking beside them and entirely ignoring her stunted protests. "She's a bearcat, all right. Tsubaki got your horse," he added, though he didn't look at her when he said it.

"Thank you," she said, completely involuntarily, so great was her relief at hearing that her crazy stunt hadn't gotten Morvich hurt.

They kept going, silent now, and it seemed that with every step the pianist gripped her arms harder, until she bit her lip to keep tears of pain from escaping. Then something occurred to her. She was a girl, a girl who looked younger than her actual age, a frail blonde girl, and that could be a useful tool in this situation. So she stored up the tears and, when her red-eyed captor pushed her up the steps and through the door of a small pitch-black wagon, she was ready to unleash a storm of hysterical crying female on them all the likes of which they'd never seen and convince them that she was just a frightened idiot who'd made a mistake.

That was her plan, anyway, and her lip had just started to tremble and her eyes to well up when the cloaked man who'd so warningly welcomed the crowd at the beginning of the show turned to her. She didn't know what it was, maybe the fact that even in the privacy of his own wagon his mask was still firmly in place, but he stole her already faint breath entirely.

"Sit," Soul grated, and followed the command by physically slamming her down. She spared him a glower, but didn't otherwise do anything. The fear was still there, and her awful overactive imagination was betraying her by picturing all the many bad, bad outcomes this whole thing could bring down on her, not the least of which was death.

"Hello there," the masked man said gently. She looked, but in the dimly lit wagon she could see nothing but blackness where his eyes should be.

Apparently her frightened little girl act wouldn't work. It had been too long, and she flinched internally as she realized the expression she'd slipped into; the narrow, calculating expression her dad fondly called her 'thinking face'. "Hello," she answered finally, hoping maybe he could be reasoned with. She remembered something that red-eyes had said. "I'm guessing you're Lord Death, then?"

"Yes indeed," he said happily. "Very nice to meet you, ah-?"

"Maka," she supplied, forcing a smile onto her face. She wasn't about to give them her last name, not if they'd done something awful to her father. "Listen, uh, sir, I think this is all just a big misunderstanding. I reacted badly, but that horse- Morvich- he is mine, if you would just send some of your people to my house, I can provide full, legal proof of purchase for him, and-"

"Maka what?" he said softly.

"Albarn," the pianist supplied suddenly. Black Star twitched. She cursed silently in her head, everyone and everything in this room by turns.

"Hmm," Lord Death hummed. What a ridiculous stage name he'd chosen. They'd all chosen silly names. Black Star? Soul? Unoriginal and cliche, she thought furiously, crossing her arms.

"Yes," she admitted slowly. Their reactions- they knew her father. They knew. Which could only mean that they did indeed have something to do with his missing status. Her stomach felt like there was a knife in it, twisting deeper every second.

"Related to Kami, by any chance? I knew her a very long time ago," he said pleasantly. All rational thought left her head, and she unconsciously moved to stand up, held in the chair only by Black Star's heavy hand falling on her shoulder, not overly rough, but with not an ounce of give to it either.

"I- she- I- my mother," she got out at last, struck dumb by the implausibility of this situation. "Have you seen her lately?" she added desperately, one hand rising to her chest to rest on the delicate hope blooming there. Something caught her eye and she glanced sideways to see red-eyes looking at her strangely.

"No, Maka, I'm sorry, not in many years. You would have been small the last time I saw her," Lord Death said gently. She slumped.

"Oh. Well, thank you anyway," she mouthed politely, adrift in such sadness that it almost drowned her fear. To have her mother's name spoken, out of the blue, in a place like this, and then snatched away! It was too cruel.

"Pleasantries aside, she tried to steal one of the horses," Soul interjected roughly. She shot him a glare that he returned just as enthusiastically.

"And she nearly knocked Soul out too! Got a glass jaw, you do," Black Star jeered, slinging an arm over the other boy's shoulders like they were brothers. Soul shoved him off and rolled his strange eyes despairingly. He'd left that part out on purpose, she suspected.

"Did she now," the cloaked man said wryly, laughter clear in his tone. She frowned, squinting. The wispy shredded edges of his cloak almost looked as if they were moving, though there couldn't possibly be any wind in a closed space like this. He waggled a gloved hand in front of her face and she looked up quickly. "I don't take kindly to thieves targeting my circus, Maka Albarn," he said slowly, and his tone was different now, dark and deep, fit only for something pale and fanged that lived blindly on the bottom of the ocean. She shivered uncontrollably.

"If you would just listen! He is my horse. Just tell me how you came into possession of him, and we'll be able to figure this out. I can even pay you- oh no, oh no." Her purse. In her bag, which wasn't with her.

"What?" Black Star said. She looked at him wildly.

"My bag, I left it- I left it in the big tent, in front, to the left of the door, it's got everything in it, my- I need it! Oh no!" She dived halfway through the door, stricken by the thought of losing her satchel and therefore also the journal inside it containing the only picture of her mother left, but he restrained her again.

"Look, I'll run and go see if it's still there," he promised before disappearing in a flurry of limbs.

"Thank you," she called back numbly, before returning her attention to the looming cloaked figure in front of her. "Listen. If you don't explain to me what you're doing with a horse that is legally my property, then you are stealing too. He's mine," she spat.

Instantly she regretted it. He stretched up even taller, and she realized he'd been slouching, impossible as it seemed. Those eyeholes were black and empty but they still pinned her, squirming and panting, to her seat. "You accuse me of stealing?" he said smoothly, all traces of joviality gone from his voice. Something made a sound beside her and she looked over to see Soul, wide-eyed, backing up like she wished she could. "Would you like to know what I did to the last thief who tried to take from my people?" he continued, colder than ice.

She couldn't say anything coherent. "N-n-n-n," was all that came out.

He leaned even closer and she cringed, because there was still nothing behind that mask, nothing, and there should be. It was horribly, wrenchingly wrong. "He left behind a very sad widow and some very traumatized children," the mask told her sadly. "I'd hate to see you suffer a similar fate. However, seeing as I used to run around with your mother, well, maybe we can work out a deal. Spare you a painful, early death, hmm?"

"Yes please," she whispered hoarsely, bowing her head in the face of the rage coming off him.

"Good girl," he whispered back, and then, just like that, the air in the wagon lightened and his voice returned to sunny cheer. "You will work for me, for a while, until I decide you've worked off your debt."

"What debt?" she said indignantly, then bit her tongue as he shook a finger in front of her face. After a moment, he dropped the motion and a surprisingly tired sigh gusted hollowly from behind the mask.

"Maka Albarn, I run this circus. I've run it for many years, and I will do anything I need to in order to protect it, or to protect my people, or their families. Anything at all, even if it's unpleasant. Even if I hate it. Anything to protect them and theirs. Do you understand?"

"Sure," she lied, trying to divine the real meaning behind what he was saying.

"Good. Well, then, here we go." Somehow, the wagon got even darker, and she looked helplessly into the dark, bone-rimmed nothingness where his eyes should be for a very long time until she fell in.

* * *

Before she cracked her eyes, she smelled something floral and light, and felt something cooling her forehead. It wasn't home, she knew that much, because their house always smelled like woodsmoke, and when she was sick, her father's ministrations tended more in the direction of making endless pots of chicken noodle soup and trying to read her fairy tales she'd loved as a toddler, complete with ridiculous voice acting. He certainly would never have hands as gentle as the ones wiping her brow right now.

So she was vaguely prepared to be somewhere new, but the surroundings that met her eyes were so odd that she shut her eyes again to reorient herself. When she reopened them haltingly, it was still odd. She was in a rather small square room, tighly packed with someone's things, but still managing to be organized and neat. The walls were rich plum, and the ceiling was the same color, decorated with looping swirls and the silhouettes of darting swallows stamped in glimmering golden dust. She was lying on a bed, a very soft bed with a slightly insane number of pillows stacked around her, but it didn't seem like it was hers, really. It was too soft. She was uncomfortable already.

"Horsefeathers," she said vaguely to the lovely ceiling as her head gave a particularly enraged ache. Was she the kind of girl who cursed? She didn't think so. "Shit," she tried, a more virulent word- where had she heard such a thing? Anyway, it felt wrong on her lips, whereas the original mild exclamation hadn't. The first had felt strangely familiar.

"Well, hello there," someone said in amusement, in the sweetest voice she thought she'd ever heard, with just the lightest trace of an accent. She sat up with a groan, removing the damp cloth from her forehead and digging her fingertips into her scalp. Her brain was vehemently protesting the slightest of movements.

"Why do I hurt?" she whispered blindly, shutting her eyes against the light filtering in through the single small window.

"Here," the person said, getting up from their seat and drawing the curtains, which were charming, dark green and speckled with tiny round mirrors and dainty embroidered leaves. This place, wherever it was, had so much personality. Every inch was infused with graceful peace. She felt more and more sure that it wasn't her own home.

"Thanks. Um- where am I?" She didn't add the more pressing question that had just occurred to her, which was what on earth her name was. Wingbeats of panic were beginning to flutter around her leaping heart as she tried and failed to remember the most basic of things- where she lived, how old she was, her favorite color. When she reached for them, they slipped through her grasp like water. She knew they were there, but she couldn't hold them.

"You're in my wagon. I'm a circus performer. My name's Tsubaki Nakatsukasa and it's a pleasure to meet you." At the long, poetic sibilance of the foreign name, she opened her eyes and blinked at the dark-haired beauty currently beaming at her, and at the tiger tattoo eyeing her with a burning amber gaze from above the collar of the woman's ivory blouse. This Tsubaki had the longest hair she had ever seen, very far from the fashionable bobs that were popular- for some reason, she thought of pink cotton candy just then- but it suited her, softened the high angles of her cheekbones and emphasized her smiling navy eyes.

"Hello," she said finally. "Did I- a circus? How did I get here?"

"They found you, lying on the ground. We think someone attacked you, possibly. You didn't have anything with you when our men found you, no bag- they think possibly you were mugged." Here the woman frowned. "Someone let one of my horses out at the same time. It was a hectic night."

"Oh. Sounds like it." She decided, when no names rose to the top of her swiss-cheese memory, to just ask. "Do you know my name?"

Tsubaki put her head to the side, inky ponytail trailing down her shoulder past the tiger and almost into her lap. "I'm so sorry, but I don't. You could ask Black Star and Soul. They're the ones who found you."

Such strange names. Shouldn't she be more afraid? What kind of place, exactly, was a circus? She vaguely thought that it had something to do with traveling, which would make sense, as she'd juts realized the wagon was rattling gently, obviously in motion. "Okay," she whispered. "Can I go ask them now, please? I don't like this. I don't like not having a name. I don't remember." She started prodding gently at her twinging skull, working her fingers over it and searching for a sore spot or a wound that would explain her amnesia. It seemed she was the sort of person who knew about amnesia and its causes, and who remembered her father making her soup, but couldn't recall his face or his name, let alone her own. There was nothing out of the ordinary under her hair that might have caused her symptoms.

"I don't know if you should walk, and anyway we're moving. Black Star usually stops by once we get on the road, though," Tsubaki told her, looking very earnest and as if her only desire in life was to help. As if to punctuate her words, a loud thump emanated from the roof of the wagon. "Oh, that's proabably him!"

"On the- the roof?"

"He's got a habit of that, yes, when the wagons are linked up on the tracks he runs along the top of them." This was said as if it were perfectly normal. The boy who swung in, upside down, through the window was very far from normal. His hair was a blue spiky mess and his face was smudged with trails of what looked like ash, as were his clothes, which were mostly black.

"Oh, Black Star, you've been trying to breathe fire again, haven't you?" Tsubaki asked him reproachfully. He crossed his arms defensively.

"It's just so cool looking though! I know I can get it eventually!"

Tsubaki sighed. "Black Star, she doesn't remember her name. Can you help?"

He swung around and stared at her where she sat aimlessly on the bed, feeling very small among all the pillows. "Maka! It's Maka! You really don't remember?"

She shook her head, mouthing the word. "Maka? Maka what? How do you know that?"

He opened his mouth, then paused as if considering carefully before answering her. Oddly enough, he was rubbing his head in a motion identical to her own, she noticed, as if it hurt too. "Well, you didn't have any identification on you, but you said your name. You just asked for help when we found you. I don't know your last name." He rubbed his head harder as he said the last. "How are you feeling?"

She shrugged and stood up, wriggling her bare toes; someone, probably Tsubaki, had removed her shoes. "All right. Confused." Here she paused, because these people had helped her, and were very nice. She didn't want to offend them, not after they'd given her back her name. "We're moving, so- am I coming with you all? With this circus thing? Was I from a town, or- did you ask anyone?"

Tsubaki looked to Black Star to answer, lifting dark brows helplessly. He grimaced, rubbing his forehead yet again and smearing more ash onto it. "Lord Death did. No one knew you, I guess. You're kind of a mystery lady. Hey, maybe that can be your act! We can pretend you're from another continent or something, put you in funny clothes! Can you speak any other languages?"

She smoothed her sleep-wrinkled skirt, a tad taken aback at his manic exuberance. He seemed too large for this tiny wagon. Judging by the curl of Tsubaki's lips as she looked up at him, though, she thought he was just about perfect. "I don't think so. Who is Lord Death and what do you mean, act? What's a circus? I don't- I don't remember very much."

"Oh," he said in consternation. "Hell, you're all balled up." She blinked at his strong language, not sure if she was the type of person to be offended over it or not.

"Yes, I guess so. When I figure out who did this to me I'm going to set them on fire." The threat felt easy. She decided that she liked it. That was a part of her she could embrace.

"I can help you with that," Black Star joked, fingering a scorched hole in his shirt.

"Oh, I'm sure," she muttered dryly. "Looks like you're really an expert."

"You don't seem surprised. By his firebreathing, I mean, or my tattoos," Tsubaki ventured.

Maka furrowed her brow. "I guess I'm not. Maybe I was in the circus too?"

"No, definitely not. Not ours, anyway, and to be honest you don't seem like a performer. You asked what a circus is. Um, we're a big group of people. We travel and put on shows. You know, strongwomen, tiger taming, clowns and the like. It's how we make our living," the other girl answered, getting up to close the window Black Star had entered through. She was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and a floor-length skirt of crushed velvet, but her thin-strapped sandals showed flower tattoos on her feet, one a deep pink rose and the other a spray of cherry blossoms. They were beautiful, and amazingly detailed.

"Oh," Maka said. "So there's really no clue at all to anything, then. All right. Well, someone has to have seen me come into town. If you let me off, I can walk back and ask around. Thank you, so much, Tsubaki."

"Whoa whoa whoa! Nuh uh! Lord Death offered you a job here, so why don't you stay with us? I mean, we travel all over the country, someone's sure to know who you are. And how are you gonna live if you've got no money and nowhere to go?" Black Star did a handstand as he spoke, and Tsubaki sighed tolerantly as he put dusty bootprints on her wall.

"I don't think I'm much of a traveler," Maka said slowly, squinting at him.

Tsubaki reached out and put a surprisingly rough hand on Maka's, smiling that amazingly genuine smile again. Maka realized that she liked this other girl, already, even though she'd only know her for perhaps ten minutes; she liked her colorful trailer, her sweetness. She trusted Tsubaki. So when Tsubaki spoke, she listened. "If you want, you can stay here, with me. It's small but it'll be all right. I imagine that eventually you'll get your memories back, and in the meantime, how can you live alone? Do you remember how you made a living, or how to stay safe in dangerous places?"

Maka drooped as the full impact of her condition really hit her. She was basically a child. She was useless. "I don't even remember how to mail a letter. I know it's possible, but I can't- I just cannot remember it! You're right, I think." This was so awful. She began attacking a loose thread in the cuff of her blouse as if it could somehow save her, wake her up from this nightmare.

"You're not alone," Tsubaki told her, hitting with uncanny precision on the thing that was scaring her most. "Black Star and I will be your friends while you figure things out, all right?"

"Definitely," Black Star said with conviction.

Maka attempted a smile through her aching head. "All right. Thank you, so much. I don't want to be a burden so I'll do anything I can, all right?"

"Well, yes, no one rides for free with the Dire Circus," Black Star said, in a tone that indicated he was only partially joking. He started gnawing on a nail. "Damn, but my head hurts. I never get headaches. Maka, are you an animal person or something?"

"What do you mean? Um... I think so. I think I like them."

"I just have this weird feeling. Tsubaki, you oughta train her on your horses."

Tsubaki tapped a finger on her bottom lip, eyeing Maka consideringly. "She's small, she's calm. She might do well. Anyway, we'll find a job for you, don't worry. When we stop tonight I'll take you around and introduce you, all right?"

"All right," Maka said tiredly. Her brain felt like it was trying to forcibly hatch out of her skull, but she soldiered through it, because it seemed like she had a job now, and a person in her situation couldn't afford to be fired for illness. "Did I have shoes on, Tsubaki?"

"Oh! Yes, you did." Tsubaki turned and knelt down, rummaging under a small table. She pulled out two sturdy leather boots and presented them to Maka. "Here you go. Hang on." She looked at them more closely, and then looked at Black Star narrowly. The expression on her face was the most serious Maka had seen yet, and it only lasted for a second, but it made her wonder. "What do you know, Black Star, you really had it right. I didn't notice before because I was worried about her, but these are riding boots."

"Riding boots?" Maka echoed dumbly, caught up in the ice pick worming its way into her temple.

"It means that you had a horse, or at least, know how to ride," Tsubaki explained, handing her the shoes. Maka laced them up, unaware that her face was scrunched up in thought.

"That sounds right," she said at last. Black Star gave her a little salute and disappeared back out the window to parts unknown, and Maka and Tsubaki sat there for a long time, talking. Maka learned that she remembered how to make an omelet, how to tie a bow, and arithmetic of all kinds, but she didn't know where milk came from or the name of their country. It was a wild mish-mash of confusion, but worse than the simple primal terror of not knowing things everyone else did was the feeling slowly gaining ground inside her. It wasn't only fear, and it wasn't only loneliness. It was a mixture of both those things thinly overlaid on a massive, churning sensation of boiling fury.

At some point she resolved, while joking about Black Star's hair with Tsubaki, to get to the bottom of all this. Someone had made her so angry, made her feel so betrayed and enraged, that it had hung on past her memory loss to the other side. That strong of a feeling shouldn't be ignored. She would figure out what had happened to her, who she was, and then she would make the person responsible rue the day they were born. She wrote it on her heart, swore it on the vaguest shadow of a memory she held there, of a faceless father making her soup.

* * *

He had no idea where to put her satchel. It wasn't overlarge, and honestly he thought it was likely meant for a man rather than a woman, well-made and sturdy and very simple. It suited her. As simple as it was, thought, it was stuffed to the brim with books and not a thing else except a small wallet, also leather, containing only a dollar and ten cents.

He turned the satchel upside down on the floor of his wagon and sifted through the pile of books that tumbled out, his spying a faint act of revenge against Lord Death and his underhanded, cruel whitewashing of her and Black Star's memories. Soul cursed his strangeness, because Lord Death's hypnosis had never once worked on him, and sometimes- often- he wished he could wipe away some things from his mind. The circus had helped, but the other things he'd tried, moonshine and working until he dropped and the occasional woman, had not. The circus didn't mind, at least not yet, because they embraced strangeness here in a way that was done nowhere else, but he always felt the darkness inside him lurking, Damocles' sword over his head, and the thread frayed more every day.

The books were all in pristine condition, and he felt a little bad for treating them so roughly. Their subjects varied wildly. He held up _A Passage to India_, scanned the floral cover of _Jane Eyre, _blinked in confusion at _Ulysses _and _The Art of War,_ and gave up when he came across an old book several inches thick that seemed to be about nothing but foreign politics. Her interests made no sense, there was no cohesion to them. Did she want to learn everything in the world? He stacked them back in her bag with more care than he'd used dumping them out, tucked her wallet on top of them, and then paused. There was a little buttoned pocket deftly hidden on the inside of her bag. He opened it and groaned out loud when yet another book met his eyes. The girl had a damn obsession.

This was no normal novel, though. The woman in the photograph on the inside cover looked so much like the girl that for a second he wondered dryly if she were a time traveler. He studied the photo, and yes, the same large intelligent eyes, small nose, slender build. It had to be Kami, her mother, the one Lord Death had refused to tell him anything about. It was the woman that Spirit Albarn had come looking for a week ago, after reports had come in about a sighting of her in Paris, and the woman he'd disappeared to find, leaving their daughter in the care of his old boss.

What a mistake that was, if this charade was how Lord Death would protect her. Why he thought keeping her in a place like the Dire Circus was anything approaching 'safe' was beyond Soul's understanding. Then again, she'd forced his Lord's hand a bit, showing up at the circus and making off with the horse Spirit had left, of all things. He rubbed his sore jaw absently. Black Star had been right in calling her a bearcat; she was fierce and feral in a way he hadn't seen before, except in Blair's tigers and in himself. The darkness quickened, it scoured his veins like sand at the thought.

He flipped to the next page and was more confused than ever. It wasn't a proper journal, like he'd thought. initially It was a messy jumble of short notes, scribbles, and what seemed to be words. Beneath a childish drawing of a rainbow was the word 'opalesce' and under that, the words 'pine', 'bibliophile', 'amour' and 'berserker'. He turned the page and found 'chatoyant', 'halycon', 'sever', and 'diaphanous' surrounded by zig-zag squares . There were little notes next to them sometimes. Beside 'pine' she'd written what seemed to be a definition right out of the dictionary, about longing and yearning, and then added a subtext about how she liked that it was also a tree.

What a strange girl. Her handwriting told him more than her ramshackle collection of words. It was crabbed and uneven in shape, but strongly and confidently inked, mostly all capitals. It gave her a presence that leaped right off the page. He put the journal back in its hidden pocket, and tucked the whole satchel far under his bed, sticking a chest of winter clothes in front of it, and then put it firmly out of his mind as he got ready for today's set up. They'd reached the next town, and tomorrow night it would be time to peform, to play again. His fingers twitched reflexively.

Emerging from his wagon in the bright morning, his first thought was that the air was like wine, crisp and cool and with just a taste of the upcoming summer in it. His second thought was to wonder who exactly was the tiny blonde monkey scampering about on the ropes of the big top's frame, a knife clutched in her teeth like a pirate. It wasn't until she leaned precariously out and removed the knife to ask Tsubaki, standing below on the ground, for direction that he realized it was the girl.

She looked so different, and yet the same. He didn't understand how he couldn't have known it was her instantly. Her hair was out of those ridiculous pigtails, falling loose around her as she swung about tying knots here and there, hooking the canvas of the tent onto its supports, and she was in clothes that were quite obviously too large for her. She'd likely borrowed them from Tsubaki, because the overlong black pants were meant for riding, and she was practically swimming in the mint-colored shirt. She didn't seem to mind wearing trousers one bit, which reinforced his initial impression of her as a bit of a tomboy. Christ, but she was tiny. He prodded his bruised jaw again and scowled at himself for letting her get the drop on him. At least Black Star didn't remember that part anymore, he'd never stop laughing.

He crossed his arms and leaned on his door, watching her for a moment. The height didn't seem to bother her at all, and even from this distance he caught the light-hearted trill of her laughter. How could she be so carefree, look so happy to be helping, when she'd awoken in a strange place missing half her mind? He thought about it and decided, with faint disappointment, that she must simply be stupid.

But then she froze, hands pausing as they lifted another sheet of black-and-white canvas, and turned her head, looking right at him with another display of that uncanny animal instinct. He didn't bother looking away at first, but after a second, he wasn't sure he could if he wanted. Her gaze was sharp and so green that he was caught in it, a fish in an net, until she chose to break it, returning to her work.

He blew out a shaky breath, more confused than ever. She definitely wasn't stupid. Intelligence burned in that green gaze, and something else, something he couldn't understand. He resolved to stay far away from her, because her happy-go-lucky air and the way she'd thrown herself into work were a cover. She knew something. Somehow, there were thin spots in the veil Lord Death had put on her memories, and Soul didn't intend to be caught in the middle when the emerald fire in her eyes burned them all down.

* * *

FOOTNOTES

1: A 'bearcat' is a term of the time for a hot-blooded or fiery girl.

2: 'Balled up' is twenties slang for confused or messed up.

3. Damocles' sword is an old fable. Basically it means that something terrible is hanging by a thin thread over your head and could fall at any moment.

4. You all probably know this, but moonshine is cheap, strong, home-made alcohol.

* * *

**Author says:** Hi! Hope you enjoyed, guys! :) Just to reiterate, Soul's going to be different here, but I'm going to show why in the next few chapters as he shows up more. The sweet sarcastic loyal guy we all know and love is in there somewhere, I promise. Thanks for reading and thank you so much to everyone who's reviewed, followed and favorited! It means so much!


	3. Chapter 3

**Palimpsest **[_pal_-imp-sest],_ noun_. 1: A manuscript or document that has been partially or completely erased to make room for new text.

* * *

It was a particularly hot day, speaking to just how fast summer was coming, and normally Maka would have appreciated the warm friendly sunshine baking the last vestiges of winter from her bones. Normally, she would have- well, she didn't know what exactly she would do, but she was fairly certain she would have enjoyed the weather. Right now, though, she was literally dripping sweat and could feel her temper fraying more every second as she worked.

She'd been stuck in this damn circus for two weeks now, and they were camped out at their second performance site so far, a few miles out of a largish city called Piper. They would open tomorrow, and the circus was a swarming hive of activity, another tent or game stand or display of some horrifying, preserved animal oddity popping up every time she turned around. She'd thrown herself into being one of the circus folk, had volunteered for every dirty, nasty or dangerous job she could find, had practically pried buckets of stinking offal from Kilik the cook's hands to take to the big cats, and now she was breaking her back cleaning out the train car the horses traveled in, yet these people still kept her firmly at arm's length and then some. Tsubaki had been kind, allowing her to camp out on the floor of her wagon, but Tsubaki was kind to absolutely everybody. Black Star had been friendly too, but he was so maniacally hyperactive that she honestly had a hard time being around him for long. He was so cheerful, so optimistic about absolutely everything that the very contrast between them only served to underline her inner turmoil, the worry and stress that she had to keep inside. It was festering, and she knew it, could feel her own impatience and fears growing and growing, but there was nothing she could do. So she kept a smile on her face and a friendly laugh in her speech, wanting these people on her side, because it was becoming more and more obvious that someone in this striped glittering morass knew something. They all wore masks, every single of one them, every hour of the day.

She'd made no progress at all figuring out who she was. No memories had magically come rushing back, no one had come looking for her or reported her missing, and every time she tried to wander into town on her own to ask questions, one of the circus folk would show up needing urgent help with something or other. On the one occasion she'd outright refused and tried to continue on into the city, the red-eyed pianist had materialized and physically yanked her back to Tsubaki's trailer, ignoring her threats and shouted questions as if she were nothing more than a rather vocal mosquito. That had been the thing that tipped her off. She was never alone, and the way either Lord Death or red-eyes would appear here and there to watch her was a clear signal, though no one else would have understood it or believed. They were telling her to stay put. She hated it. She wanted to know what was going on.

At first, though, she'd brushed off her own feelings as simple paranoia. After all, logically, the Dire Circus had taken her in, fed her, given her a safe place to sleep and a way to survive, when they could very easily have left her lying in the forest with a brain like a sieve. She'd spent the first week with that awful fake smile pasted on her face, convincing herself that the aura of darkness she felt over her everywhere she went, an avalanche about to fall at the slightest whisper, was just her imagination, a symptom of her amnesia.

Then she'd helped Tsubaki lead the horses into the temporary stalls at their first city and the moment she'd seen the big red gelding, she'd felt something so deep hook into her heart that she couldn't deny it. It went beyond memory. She knew that horse, and he knew her too. It was obvious in the way his ears pricked familiarly at the whistle that left her lips entirely without conscious thought. She'd been found wearing riding boots, and then this horse- this horse that Tsubaki had cheerfully informed her had been left in the care of the circus by one of Lord Death's friends only a week before she was found- knew her. It solidified her suspicions.

All her angry ideas and notions were just that, however, mere ideas. She couldn't take vague ideas to the police, or use them to find her real self, so for now she was a complicit prisoner, as much as it rankled. Add the baking heat of the metal trailer, the way her hair kept falling out of its ties, and the telltale prickle of a sunburn forming on the back of her neck, and it all made for a tremendously bad mood. She flung another shovelful of manure out of the huge open doors without looking, though she did mutter a word that Black Star had taken great glee in teaching her under her breath as her sore back gave an extra harsh twinge.

Someone behind her gave a sputtering cough and she whirled, dropping the rake in consternation as she met the furious red eyes of Soul. Bits of hay and manure were sprinkled like unsanitary pixie dust over his hair and shoulders. He looked angrier than anyone she had ever seen in the two weeks she could remember, angrier than she could ever imagine anyone being, glaring like a demon with those uncanny eyes and showing his sharp teeth in a distinctly bloodthirsty manner. Her mindless throw had hit him, obviously, squarely in the face.

That face- that was priceless. He was so red with temper that he looked like a lobster. "Your mean scary act is kind of ruined when you have sawdust and horse droppings in your hair," she choked out before collapsing into uncontrollable laughter.

"I will kill you, woman," he growled with scarily heartfelt conviction, hands fisting at his sides.

Maka laughed harder at the beautiful justice karma had just handed her, falling to her her knees and clutching her sides. She stole a glance at him through teary eyes, just as he went cross-eyed to flick a piece of unsavory something off his nose, and that set her off again right as she was beginning to regain control. "I can't help it," she wheezed, ribs aching with mirth. "I didn't- I didn't know you were there!"

"I will kill you," he repeated, but it was slightly less furious now and more resigned. She sat up more fully, still snickering, but clamping her hands over her mouth to try and stem it a little. He combed his fingers through that snowy mop with a disgusted look on his face.

"It won't kill you," she said in amusement, watching him as she finally got control of herself. "All horses eat is hay, you know."

He curled his lip at her. "You can't fucking look behind you when you throw that shit?"

"No pun intended, I assume," she whispered before another fit of snorting laughter took her. Served him right. He'd been nothing but cruel to her since the moment Black Star had introduced them, had looked right through her and told her with cold scorn she wouldn't last a week here. She had decided right then to hate him passionately. It seemed she wasn't the type of person who liked being dismissed, but she did appear to be proficient in holding grudges.

He muttered something she couldn't hear, still raking through his hair as frantically as if it had spiders in it- then again, given how creepy he was, always lurking in his dark trailer and hardly ever mingling, he was probably good friends with some spiders- and then told her sharply, "Lord Death wants to talk to you."

She sobered at once. "That's right, isn't it," she said with as much innocence as she could muster, though she watched him carefully from under her lashes. "You're his little henchman. His enforcer. Thanks so much for keeping me from going into town the other day. You know, because there was no reason for me to be there at all."

He looked away from her searching gaze, lips thinning. "There wasn't." So he was a liar as well as rude. Her temper flared.

"Of course not," she growled, standing up and stalking to the lip of the trailer so she could loom over him as he stood outside on the ground. "It would be positively stupid of me to want to check a newspaper for a missing person's advertisement, or to leave my information at a police station in case someone came looking for me." She hopped down from the trailer and jabbed a finger in his chest as her anger caught fire. He stared at her down his nose, lip curling again, and she knew she probably looked ridiculous and smelled terrible, but she didn't care. He knew something and he would admit it if she had to beat it out of him. "It would just be stupid of me to want to try to figure out who I am! Stupid! Yes, you're absolutely right!"

His eyes narrowed as her voice grew louder and louder. "Watch yourself," he snarled right back. "This circus took you in as a favor. If you don't pull your weight we'll leave you on the side of the road and never look back."

She felt hot tears of fury rise in her eyes, to her horror, and wheeled away to keep him from seeing. "I have been pulling my weight," she hissed, blinking hard. "You've had a problem with me from day one and I don't know why, but I do know you and Lord Death watch me." Tears stemmed, she turned back to him. "What is it you know?"

He regarded her silently, only the faintest wrinkle between his silvery brows giving away the fact that he was looking at a distraught, lost girl rather than a rock or an insect. "Not a thing," he told her at last, still with that barest hint of something on his face, but then he erased it and was back to his default angry scowl. "Now. Lord Death wants to see you, and as he's the one who's keeping you fed, I'd hop to it."

She shook her head in something close to despair, squinting up at the bright sun so it would dry up the last traces of her tears. "All right." Soul turned to leave, but she reached out and caught at his sleeve, reckless and knowing it, driven by the pent-up anger she'd just loosed. He froze on the spot as her fingers brushed his wrist, not turning to look at her, just standing motionless. It was a strange reaction, and she frowned for a moment, but then let it go. After all, everything about everyone here was strange. "I know you know something about who I am. I'm not stupid. Something's going on here. The circus has my horse, and-"

He did turn at that, breaking through whatever had held him in stasis and pinning her in place with the look in his eyes. "Your horse?" he said intently, searching her face. He was uncomfortably close.

She blinked up at him, at a complete loss. "That new chestnut. Aka, Tsubaki called him. I know I know him, I do, I can feel it-" she pressed a hand to her chest to illustrate her point- "He's mine."

He lifted a brow. "You remember him?"

"No!" she said in frustration. "I just know. I felt it as soon as I saw him."

"Just a feeling," he said slowly, stepping away. "Feelings can lie to you the same as people," he admonished over his shoulder before slipping away out of sight between two towering stacks of folded canvas. She settled her hips back against the edge of the trailer with a sigh, burying her face in her hands and not caring how dirty they were. He was right, in a way, because all the things she thought she'd pieced together were feelings. There wasn't anything truly concrete there, no rock-solid evidence. Maybe he'd been instructed to keep her out of town for her own safety. Who knew what kind of trouble a woman with no memory could find? As for the horse, well, maybe she'd seen him at the circus before she lost her memory. Red horses were as common as leaves on trees, anyway. She was probably latching on to the tiniest of things in a desperate bid to create a past for herself, a lifeline in the drowning waves of everything she didn't know. She'd put herself through the longest conversation she and Soul had shared to date, and for nothing but more uncertainty.

"Sorry, Father," she whispered to the kind crimson blur in her mind, before shaking herself firmly and trotting off to Lord Death's wagon.

Soul watched her go from his vantage point behind the folded tents and could only gnaw on his fingertips in a frenzy. What had she done to him, with that touch on his wrist? She hadn't even known, but the blackness was sweeping over him, burying him alive, and it was her fault. He'd slid to the ground as soon as he was out of her sight, breath hitching, trying to stamp out the urge rising inside him to simply chop off her head and solve all her memory problems then and there. He crept around the corner to watch her go, feeling his face draw up like an animal denied their kill, then hunched over, fingers gripping his hair so hard it hurt.

"What's wrong with me?" he asked no one, wondering why she hadn't turned to run when he'd bared his teeth at her, why the lightest touch had sent him reeling so far into his madness, what she'd said to herself before leaving. He wanted to know where she'd stolen eyes so pure, why her journal of words made no sense and yet was perfect, and why her laughter had lifted his heart. He couldn't stand it. He couldn't breathe. He fell forward, pressing his forehead into the cool dirt, digging his hands into it, watching the damp black earth break apart between his fingers, like flesh would, like she would, the mindless blonde bearcat, and-

"Soul?" she squeaked.

It was the first time she'd ever said his name, and it pushed him back to himself out of sheer terror. "Yes?" he said at last, with false calm, as if his prone position were perfectly normal. He didn't look at her.

She squatted down next to him in a rather manly way. He stared at her boots. Dirty, well-worn, and laced firmly around what would doubtless be delectably dainty calves. "Are you all right?" she asked him.

He hadn't heard its like in so long that he didn't, at first, even recognize the genuine concern in her tone. "Yes, you withered immature excuse for a female, I'm fine," he said viciously, pushing himself upright and away from her. Her face closed off instantly, and she stood up as well, crossing her arms defensively over the nonexistent chest he'd so kindly pointed out.

"Thank you for that," she muttered, looking down. He immediately felt like a massive asshole, and though that was the norm for him, he felt the regret for his sharp unbridled tongue unusually keenly at the tight press of her lips. "Lord Death isn't in his wagon, I was coming to ask if you knew where he was." She raised her brows at him expectantly, waiting as he stood there, entirely at a loss.

"I don't know," he said eventually.

"Well, then, I'm going to get back to work," she said tiredly. "If you see him, can you tell him I'll stop by again tonight for whatever it was he wanted?"

"Yes," he said stupidly. Not a mention of his writhing on the ground, no explosion at his insult. Why? He forced himself to meet her eyes, curiosity beating out his apprehension. On her face was an expression of pure sympathy, almost worry. As they looked at each other, she still didn't say anything, just shrugged a little and smiled halfway.

"I'm strange too," she finally told him, when he continued to stare at her. "I've got a leaky head and apparently a temper like a drunken sailor and I- I can't- god, I don't even know what I like to eat. Every time dinner's served, I have to guess. The first night I was here I put mustard in my coffee. I'm like a child. I'm useless, really, so whatever's going on with you I won't judge."

He pulled his gaze away from her face forcibly, feeling as if the ground were tilting beneath him. Then he turned back to her, enraged, the darkness pulsing. He took a step up to her, so close that they were almost touching, skinning his lips back from his teeth, displaying them like the warning they were always taken as. "A wise girl would be scared of me. People always are," he hissed. He had no idea how to handle this kindness, this acceptance, and he knew even as he spoke that he was acting like a fool, but he couldn't seem to stop himself. At that moment, he couldn't get the voice of his father out of his head, the sound of it distant across the years, but the words indelibly burned into his brain, haggling over the price he would sell his unwanted albino son to the circus for.

She didn't move a muscle, though her face got darker at his threat, and then out of nowhere, she whacked him on the side of his head. It was done with enough force that he reeled, blinking, head throbbing, but it wasn't as hard as she could have hit him. He knew from experience. "Don't pull that with me, I've seen you cuddling with the dogs when you think no one's looking," she said firmly. "You're not all bad. Maybe all irritating, but not all bad. Now quit bothering me, I have work to do." She turned her back to him and hopped lithely up into the trailer, and through his watering eyes he thought that she had certainly found more well-fitting trousers somewhere. For just a second, watching her hips as she swing up, he thanked whoever had given them to her, and then he caught his runaway thoughts in flabbergasted horror and simply left, unable to dredge up any more vitriol for the day. She'd lanced the infection inside him and for a while at least, he could breathe.

* * *

The next time he saw her, she threw him off balance yet again like it was her sole mission in life. He was just about to snag the last buttered roll from under Stein's beaky nose when she came out of nowhere and snatched it up, right from under their reaching hands. They both blinked at her.

"I like sour things," she said innocently, as if it were an explanation.

"Girl, that's a roll. Of bread," Stein said slowly, taking his glasses off and cleaning them on his ragged coat. Soul caught the scent of gunpowder coming off the other man and wrinkled his nose. Getting shot out of a cannon was a big hit with the crowd, but it was messy and in Soul's opinion, overly flashy. The smell of his act followed Stein everywhere, a calling card and a warning that many people were often grateful for. Stein was a main act, but he was also the circus doctor, and he didn't limit himself to stitching up people who were actually wounded. He put his glasses back on and directed them at Maka, not moving an inch.

She didn't back down and Soul was mildly impressed. "Yes, and?" she said politely.

"It's not sour, you moron," Soul told her bluntly.

She looked at the roll as if it had just put a knife in her back. "Oh," she answered tragically. "It looked- oh. Want it, then?"

"Yes!" Stein said immediately, practically salivating, but she moved her tray away from him, scowling.

"Not you. You think you're too good to doctor up a horse. Tsubaki and I had to do it, so you get no roll," she said indignantly. Much to Soul's surprise, she settled it on his tray instead with a small, cautious smile, and then moved on down the line to poke at spaghetti as if it might bite her.

Stein and Soul traded their standard fierce glares and moved on too. Soul took his food to his wagon, as he usually did, and sat on the steps, watching the fireflies blink Morse code messages at each other in the twilight. She walked up out of nowhere as if it were perfectly normal and rapped a knuckle on the side of his wagon. "Anyone home?" she asked carefully.

He thought about his answer for so long that she looked nearly asleep by the time he said, "For a little while," and nodded, just slightly, to the grass beside the steps of his wagon. Hell if he'd give up his comfortable seat for an interfering, nosy almost-stranger. She didn't seem to mind at all, or even notice, plopping right down on the ground like a boy would, trousered legs akimbo in an entirely undignified way. He wondered in secret amusement just how much she didn't remember. Did she even realize that most females would have swooned dead away if asked to do half the things she'd done since joining up? Then again, none of the other circus women bothered to pretend they were proper ladies, so maybe she was just following their example. She was in that billowy mint-green shirt again, ridiculous in how poorly it fit her nonexistent figure, but it contrasted nicely with the golden tan warming her arms. Soul turned his attention very seriously back to his food at that. Maybe it had been too long if the sight of some random girl's skinny bare arms was getting to him.

"Thanks," she said quietly around a bite of apple. "After doing a certain number of stupid things in front of everybody I kind of reach my limit, you know?"

He grunted, refusing stubbornly to look at her. The fireflies had hypnotized him into a mildly good mood, as had the pleasant ache of anticipation in his fingers, knowing as they did that they'd be playing again tomorrow night. Regardless, she was dangerous, and a stray good mood wasn't reason enough to start befriending her. He was almost entirely certain that she was trying to cozy up to him for information; she'd made it obvious earlier that she knew something was up and suspected he knew more than he was saying. So he ignored her as much as possible.

She munched away happily despite his heavy silence. "What are those?" she said after a while. He glanced up to see her pointing at the dancing flecks of light drifting among the grass.

He should pity her. He should answer the question, but not because of the wonder on her face, or the way her lips were sweetly parted as she looked at this strange new phenomenon. He should answer because it was fucking pathetic to not know the most basic of things were called, and she was annoying and needed all the help she could get. "Fireflies," he said maganimously, then stuffed the last bite of roll in his mouth to stem any other words that might try to escape.

She frowned. He couldn't seem to get used to the way she looked at him. She didn't stare at his teeth, or his hair, or his eyes. She didn't sneer or laugh or point. He stayed in the circus because it was a haven, a place where no one judged him a freak for something out of his control, but she wasn't from the circus. He hadn't expected it at all, and truth be told, that was the second reason he'd taken such an instant dislike to her, apart from how uncomfortable it was to lie to her, or their initial violent clash that she no longer remembered- it was because he'd just expected to be abused. "They're insects?" she asked.

"Mmph," he told her around the roll. She raised a brow at him and he nodded.

"That's incredible," she breathed, abandoning her food and propping her chin on her hand to watch them flit around better.

He watched her, took in the soft glowing satisfaction on her face at this new discovery, and realized with something approaching pure fear that he didn't secretly want to find out what color her blood was. He felt normal, a boy watching a girl, and that was something he couldn't handle, so he got up and opened his door to go inside. He stole a final glance at her before he shut it and stopped, quite involuntarily, because now her face was twisted and focused inward, wonderment forgotten.

"What?" he growled.

She started and jumped up. "Sorry. I was thinking, I'll leave."

He squinted at her. "Thinking what?"

She looked a little taken aback at his sudden attempt at civil conversation, but answered promptly. "It's just whenever I hear a beautiful word, like 'firefly', I want to write it down for some reason."

When she didn't continue, he sighed and said, "And?"

She shrugged. "I can't remember how to read or write," she said with false lightness. "Silly, isn't it, a girl my age. It's such a strong urge, though."

He was struck dumb by the awfulness of her revelation. This girl, who had filled her secret journal with precious words, who had collected them during her life like jewels, couldn't write. She couldn't read any of the books that she had loved enough to haul with her everywhere, enough to keep them by her side even at a circus, of all places. "Maybe Tsubaki can teach you again," he managed, voice cracking, before shutting the door, keeping himself from offering to teach her himself only by biting his lip until it bled.

* * *

"Maka," Tsubaki said from across the wagon. "Can you button me up, please?"

"Oh. Sure." Maka sat up from where she'd been dozing and went over to the other girl, but she stopped halfway, blinking in surprise. The familiar Tsubaki, smiling and gentle as an autumn day, was gone, and in her place stood a fierce goddess, queen of some place no one had ever dared to imagine. Her lips were slicked with glossy black and a thick, horizontal stripe of silver crossed her eyes, bridging her nose and winging out on either side to her temples. Her lashes were tinted white somehow, like frost had settled on them, giving her an inhuman look, and her silvery sleeveless outfit, cinched at her narrow waist and reaching only to mid-thigh, revealed the tattoos stamped into her arms and legs, only emphasizing her regal appearance. "Wow," Maka said softly. "You look a lot different."

Tsubaki shrugged shyly and smiled and the queen was gone. "It's important that the acts are exciting for the crowd. Everyone has a costume," she said softly.

"Speaking of that," Maka said as her fingers flew up the row of buttons on the back of Tsubaki's outfit, "Why does Soul play in a mask?"

"What do you mean, why?" Tsubaki answered, brow furrowing delicately as they stepped outside into the cool evening and headed toward the stalls, the animated chatter and laughter and occasional scream of the crowds a distant buzz. They were both barefoot and carrying their boots, wanting to enjoy the soft carpet of grass before it got trampled and ruined by passerby and animals. Tsubaki's question wasn't as odd as it seemed. Masks and other face-obscuring bits of attire were more the norm here than anything, Maka had gradually discovered. There was one woman who kept herself entirely shrouded in bandages at all times, and no one looked twice at her in this circus.

"It's just he's really very good. You'd think he would want some acknowledgement," Maka said eventually, not exactly sure how to vocalize her intense curiosity about his past. He was quite the enigma, and she was fairly certain that she was the kind of person who couldn't leave a puzzle unsolved. He played like no one she'd ever heard, yet his personality was as foul as his music was lovely. After his strange fit yesterday, and the stilted formal way he'd talked with her during her impulse visit to his wagon, she was even more curious as to why a pianist of his caliber, who could make their way anywhere in the world, would follow a circus around. She had a feeling that it had something to do with his obvious dislike of most people, but also that there was more there to be discovered.

"Mmm," Tsubaki hummed thoughtfully. "I've never asked." She shot Maka a sidelong glance. "It's generally not a good idea to ask us too many questions about our pasts," she added, not ungently.

"Of course," Maka said with false cheer. Inside she was alternately raging and pouting. Tsubaki, the closest friend she had here by far, still used words like 'us' and 'our', putting Maka firmly outside and away. What did she have to do to be accepted by these people? She bit off a sigh and looked at Tsubaki again, still taken aback by the way a little facepaint and a change in clothing could create such a tranformation. Then she stopped in her tracks, eyes fixed on Tsubaki's bare feet. When she had woken up from whatever had caused her memory loss, the very first time they met, there had been cherry blossoms on the left foot and a rose on the right.

Now the top of Tsubaki's left foot bore a darkly outlined swallow, dipping gracefully in mid-flight, and the right a raven with spread wings and bright crafty eyes. Maka knew, she knew without a doubt, that they hadn't been there before. She knew with more certainty than she knew her own name. That raven watched her, and she watched it watch her with dawning twisting fear, as Tsubaki paused and turned to her in question.

"Maka?" she asked.

"Nothing. I mean, sorry, I- sorry," Maka said in a rush, tearing her eyes away from the cunning sparkle of the raven's. Then she bit her lip, because why should she play the fool in the face of something so impossible? This wasn't something that just happened all the time, or another result of her memory problems. She would face this thing head on. "Funny, I don't remember those birds on your feet," she said slowly, lifting her face to Tsubaki's.

The other girl went very still, for just a fraction of a moment, then flashed a bright smile made all the more blinding in contrast to her midnight lips. "Yes, they're two of my favorites," she said happily. They reached the stalls as she spoke, and she handed Maka a hoof pick without the slightest sign that anything was off between them.

"Thanks," Maka told her, with a smile just as false and just as syrupy sweet. Her heart gave a little wrench, because she liked Tsubaki- liked her a lot, in fact- and now Tsubaki had joined the list of people lying to her. She kept smiling as they brushed the horses, as she gave Tsubaki a leg up on her mount, and as she opened the canvas of the big top to let them thunder inside, the crowd roaring as one. Then she turned and walked, setting her boots firmly and quickly one in front of the other, winding in and out among the wagons and setting her sights on the distant glow of the city. She would find out something good tonight no matter what, and damn the circus' attempts to entrap her. As she left the outskirts of the circus, her heart grew exponentially lighter with each step until it overflowed into her legs and she ran, not entirely sure she would come back.

* * *

The moon was nearly full overhead, an imperfect disc of bone white light, and Soul slanted his head back for a moment, basking in it, loving its lambent simple beauty. "Focus," Black Star whispered irritably next to him, nearly invisible among the underbrush of the forest's edge where they were concealed in waiting.

"I am," Soul started to say, only to realize his sometimes-friend had actually been talking to Tsubaki.

She looked rather upset, he realized. "How are you not more concerned about her?" she said brokenly to Black Star, wringing her hands. At least she kept her voice low, regardless of whatever was bothering her. She was sensitive; something or someone always needed tending to her. Soul tuned her out and kept his gaze focused on the gently rippling wheat and corn in the field in front of them, until he heard her say, "Maka can barely write her name, she can't be out there alone!"

He whirled on her. "Bearcat's gone?" he hissed.

She nodded fretfully. "I think. I couldn't find her after we closed up, and then we had to leave so quickly to catch this one. I didn't have time to search. She noticed my tattoos shift, I didn't ever think she was paying attention, but she knew I was lying, she just knew and she looked so hurt-" She trailed off and put a hand over her silver-striped eyes for a moment. Black Star tossed an arm around her shoulders in a clumsy attempt at comfort.

"It's okay. We'll deal with this, and then we'll deal with her," he said firmly, rubbing his head as he usually did when he thought too hard about Maka, a side effect of having his memory blanked. Soul hated that too. He hated lying to one of the few people he got along with, hated being stuck with the knowledge of who Maka was, keeping her domesticated here under Lord Death's thumb while her father was out risking his life to hunt down her mother. Black Star turned to him with a lifted brow. "Why do you care? She's got great gams but I kind of got the impression you want her to die slowly." Tsubaki rolled her eyes but refrained from saying anything.

"I don't, if she wants to run off and get killed it's no skin off my nose," Soul said loftily, ignoring the comment about Maka's legs. "Now pay attention."

He said it just in time, because when they looked back at the wheat field, he was there, and judging by the fresh red stains on his clothes and hands, he'd murdered again. Soul winced to himself. The man they'd come to kill was huge, bullish, massive through his whole body. He was poorly dressed, which fit with the information Lord Death had received- this killer was a drifter, a nomad, who had made the mistake of staying in one place just long enough for the Dire Circus to catch up.

"Stabbing time," Black Star whispered grimly to them both. His blades shone like justice, but Tsubaki's blade was as dark as the heart it would soon be inside.

"And how," Soul answered, a bare breath of sound. He readied himself, shifting his weight, to dash out of the trees and spill murderer's blood among the gentle wheat, when a head just as blonde and golden as the grains appeared. His harsh, adrenaline-fueled breath disappeared entirely. Tsubaki gave a muted whistling gasp of purest fear, held back only by Black Star's cautious arm. They'd intended to wait and watch a while, to see if he was armed, to assess the situation, but now everything was turned on its head.

Her voice was shaking, breathless from running, but loud, and her head was held high. What the hell was she doing here of all places? She looked like a mermaid, beautifully drenched in the moonlight but deceptively dangerous, buried to her hips in the wavering wheat. He still couldn't breathe. Never had a mission gone this wrong for them. "I saw you! You killed her!" she shouted wildly. The killer jumped, caught, and turned on her with all the crafty viciousness of a cornered fox, but as soon as he saw that his accuser was a diminutive pigtailed girl, unarmed and alone, he relaxed.

"Aren't you clever," he rumbled cruelly, striding toward her very fast without the slightest hesitation. His business was killing and the perfect victim had delivered herself right to his doorstep; this was probably like Christmas to him. She clenched her fists, face setting stubbornly, and Soul knew with a sinking feeling that she would never run. Before he knew what he was going, he had dashed out into the open toward them, Black Star and Tsubaki close behind him, but they'd waited too long, believing that she would surely turn and run. She hadn't. She was staring up at the murdering man as he closed in on her, and Soul had only a moment to marvel at how certain he was that she was unafraid.

* * *

FOOTNOTES

1: As far as cursing in this time period, the research I found indicates that many words remain the same, i.e. 'fuck' or 'damn'. Obviously the time and company where they were used was much different than today, but circuses were not known for being sticklers for propriety. :)

2: 'Gams' are legs, usually women's.

3: 'And how' is strong, fervent agreement with something just said.

4: As far as Soul being sold to the circus by his parents, this was pretty common. Often it was actually done out of love, to give someone with no other way of making a living (due to deformities or other conditions) a chance at doing so. Other times, families just wanted their 'burdens' gone, and circus often traveled long distances just to ask 'freaks' to join. Researching this was pretty sad.

* * *

**Author says:** Hi! Hope you guys had fun reading this, let me know. I plan on answering reviews soon when I get more time, but for now, thank you all SO SO MUCH for reviewing/favoriting/following! It's so encouraging! Sorry about the cliffhanger, I'll get the next chapter up asap. Thanks for reading! :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Amanuensis** [uh-man-yoo-en-sis], _noun._ 1: someone chosen to write down another's work if the original author is unable or unwilling to do so themselves. 2: person employed to write down dictations.

* * *

She had a vague notion that when life-threatening things happened, time would seem to slow, but when the scarlet-spattered monster of a man she'd just seen kill a woman in cold blood loomed over her, a grin that promised only a slow demise curling his meaty lips, it all went very fast. First, someone far to her right shouted something, but she couldn't tear her eyes away from the big man as he drew his knife and licked his lips. He hadn't bothered to clean it after slitting that woman's throat in the dark alley.

Secondly, when he swung it at her own throat, she didn't artfully dodge so much as she simply fell down, but it worked; his blow whooshed over her head and he gave a guttural roar of rage. She kicked forward at the knee conveniently in front of her face, heard it creak, heard him howl in pain, saw the joint bend unnaturally far back, but he was still upright. She scuttled back desperately into the cover of the rough wheat, cursing her unbelievable stupidity, half of her already mourning her own death and all the things she would never find out, when her hand landed on something smooth and warm.

She spared it a glance and gave a howl of her own, this one victorious, blood singing in her veins as she snatched it up. It was a scythe for harvesting crops, left accidentally in the field by whatever innocent farmer owned it; she would happily have kissed him right now, whoever he was. The long, curved wooden handle was silky under her fingers, worn perfectly by generations of hands, and the blade was wickedly, violently lovely. She scambled to her feet and found herself smiling at the murderer, mirroring his own sick grin. His smile faded in the face of her own. It seemed he didn't like his toys fighting back. She was panting, blinded by rage and the vivid memory of the helpless dawning terror on his victim's face as her neck opened up; the girl had gasped, blood had bubbled from her lips, poured from her throat, and she'd looked right into Maka's eyes as she died. It had been over so fast. One second Maka had been strolling along, and then a noise had caught her ear, she'd turned, glanced at the other girl walking in the shadows across the road, and then that girl was simply dead, forever lost to her loved ones. The man had done it easily, had been well practiced, sawing through the flesh and tendons like he loved it. That girl had actually had a life. She'd known what kinds of food she liked, who her parents were, what things she liked to do. Maybe she'd even been in love. She'd had a past, but he'd taken it away along with her future, and the more Maka thought about it the more her rage at the sheer unfairness of it grew. That rage had sent her after him, possibly cost her her life in this misguided attempt at revenge, or maybe justice, but she didn't care. She couldn't have made any other choice.

"I don't think I'm the kind of person who will feel bad about killing you," she told him, white-knuckled on the scythe. He charged, bleating his rage, steps thudding heavily, and everything sped up again, her pulse and her breath rising in warlike tandem. Then someone knocked her down and out of the way, coming in hot from the side, and she turned on them with a shriek, only just stopping herself from slicing off Black Star's hand as she recognized him. Dizzily, she spared just a split second to feel distant apprehension at her own volatile violence.

"What the fuck?" he shouted in her ear as they hit the ground, bruisingly hard.

"He killed someone! He murderered a girl, I saw him! In town!" she explained rapidly, rolling away from him.

"I know that, you dumb broad, I want to know why you're here!" someone else bellowed. She stood up and gaped. Soul and Tsubaki had appeared out of nowhere and were dancing around the lumbering blood-spattered murderer, darting in and out easily, and each time they did, another slash appeared on the man, whose knife never touched them. Soul was the one who had just shouted at her, but he wasn't paying any attention to her now, instead focusing completely on the righteous punishment he was doling out. Tsubaki moved like a waterfall, with graceful unstoppable force, and her dark sword snicked in and out so fast it was barely visible. Soul was less harmonious in his movements; in fact, watching him reminded Maka of a time she'd ridden under a bluejay nest. The angry parents had dive-bombed her, scolding with unbelievable volume, clawing and pecking until they drove her off. He looked a bit like that, all mean sharp movement. He wanted to hurt the man before they killed him, she realized, with a cold, sinking sensation. When she caught a glimpse of his face, barely human anymore, she sat down, hard, suddenly and for the first time all night feeling very afraid. It was the face he'd worn when she found him lying on the ground beside the stacks of canvas.

Black Star put his hand over her eyes then. "Don't look," he told her. He sounded resigned, tired, very different from the bouncing ball of energy she knew. She knew what those words meant; the man was about to die, probably by Tsubaki's sword, because she, always kind even to those who didn't deserve it, wouldn't allow Soul to torture him. She would be satisfied with his death, not needing to drink in his agony to feel compensated for his crimes. Maka thought that, as gruesome as it was, she sided with Soul on this particular issue. The man should suffer at least a little. Perhaps a lot. She wasn't entirely certain.

"I won't faint," she informed Black Star tersely, offended at the insinuation that she couldn't handle this- because hadn't she come here, all alone, to do by herself what they were doing now? And they actually knew what they were doing, they knew how to fight like it was second nature them, had come armed and ready. That was strange, but she would dwell on it later, when this travesty was all over and done. She tore Black Star's hand away from her face just in time to see the tip of Tsubaki's black sword erupt from the man's chest. He died almost as quickly as his victim had, though he didn't look at Maka; secretly she was thankful. Watching the inner light flicker out in that poor girl's eyes, watching as all the billions of thoughts and feelings and dreams she'd ever had were destroyed, would haunt Maka for a very long time. One death was enough to see today.

"I wasn't done," Soul said, tone ugly.

Tsubaki said nothing, just bent down and began cleaning her sword on the wheat. It seemed blasphemous, somehow, to stain something meant for nourishment and life, but Maka held her tongue. Whatever was going on here, she'd witnessed them doing something most certainly illegal. The dead man lying there bleeding into the ground had deserved it, but she wasn't going to blow off leverage like this so easily. Maybe she could use it to force Soul to tell her what she knew, to make Tsubaki explain how her tattoos could morph overnight. She felt unexpectedly exhausted, body rebelling in the aftermath of her adrenaline and strong emotions, so she laid down on her back in the field, cradling her scythe, and let the sweet yellow wheat fold over her, until all she could see was dark gold around her and black sky above her.

"Don't go anywhere," Black Star told her, still in that tired, almost elderly voice. Maybe he was disappointed he'd had to babysit her instead of joining in on the fun. She flapped a hand in his general direction, watching the stars and wondering how exactly Soul had left those wounds on the murderer when he hadn't been armed in anyway she could see. She didn't think she believed in ghosts, or werewolves, or angels, anything superstitious. She was fairly sure she was a logical person, but the things she'd seen in the past few days were shaking her down to her bones.

When she heard footsteps approaching, she sighed and sat up. They were all three staring at her in a rather portentous way, and Tsubaki in particular looked nearly heartbroken. Maka avoided her eyes, still unsure if she was angry or not with her friend. "Someone want to explain to me what you're all doing out here armed to the teeth?" she asked at last.

They exchanged glances. She drooped, feeling sure that she would be put on the outside yet again, branded untrustworthy simply because she wasn't one of them, but then Soul said evenly, watching her like she might break apart, "We heard that he was a bad person. So we came to kill him. The law is slow and sometimes it's lazy, and there's no one better to kill a bad man and get away clean than us."

Vigilante justice, then, and somehow she wasn't surprised. Maybe she was just overtired, or still stunned from her brush with death, but it simply made sense to her. Was this something she had just forgotten to be horrified by? "Oh," she said, wiping her hands over her face and almost wishing someone would come along and refresh her amnesia just a little, to get that dying girl out of her mind. "Oh. Is this the first time you've done this?"

"No," he answered gruffly, still watching her in a way that belied his harsh tone. "Would you like to explain what you were doing here?"

She shrugged, not entirely sure she could even explain it to herself. "I saw him do it," she said at last. "I went to town, I was trying to find someone still selling papers even though it was so late, and I got a bit turned around and I just heard a noise and he killed her. A girl. He slit her throat, and she looked right at me, but it was too late, I couldn't-" She broke off as her throat closed around the sorrow welling inside her, and put her head against her drawn-up knees to hide her face from such an awful world.

"Go on, I'll take her home," Soul said, a little ways off, and Tsubaki and Black Star protested a little, but eventually she heard them swishing away through the field. She was crying now. He'd said that he would take her home, and that single word cracked her open. He, at least, accepted her.

"Let's just go," she said damply into her knees.

He came over to stand beside her, nudging her scythe with the toe of his boot. "Were you really going to fight him?"

She refused to look at him. "Yes." When he said nothing else, though, she had to, and she was struck by the way even the fresh blood on him was not as purely, vibrantly red as his eyes. "Aren't you going to make fun of me and tell me how stupid I am?"

He shook his pale head mildly, rubbing the back of his neck almost sheepishly. She was surprised to see that he looked just as tired as she felt, all the ferocious avenging fire from the fight earlier gone, replaced with a calm that seemed foreign on him, as if something terrible had been taken out of him. "No. I think you already know how stupid it was, but it can't have been easy seeing what you saw. I play judge and jury all the time. If you want to, I don't have any right to tell you no. Don't think you could have done anything else, anyway."

He held out a hand to her, tentatively, face dispassionate, but she caught the tiny twitch of his mouth that told her what the gesture cost him. "Home?" she said dryly, taking his hand and letting him pull her up. His hand was warm, rough, more of a working man's hand than she would have expected from a pianist. She thought about the bluejays and realized with burgeoning awe that she'd remembered something, from before the circus; something had come back to her from her life before, something that wasn't just a diluted smear. As momentous as it was, she couldn't quite find it in herself to be joyful, not after what she'd seen tonight. She took the scythe with her, out of gratitude and fear for her future with the Dire Circus, and they walked back in silence under the moonlight.

* * *

He scrutinized her out of the corner of his eye as they stepped quietly among the dark wagons. It was late now, the final acts long over and the last civilians gone. It was empty, quiet, and he wished it wasn't, because the look on her face told him all too clearly that she was going to brood over tonight's events. At least she wasn't crying anymore, or passed out, or a screaming panicked mess. All in all, she'd handled it unbelievably well, and a tiny part of him was trying exceedingly hard to respect her for it. He still couldn't believe she'd chased after that man alone. Her bravery was almost insane; he stole another glance at her and shook his head. She was so small, but she hadn't backed down. He was a little angry she'd run off from the circus, too, but then that was his own fault. Lord Death had charged him, as the only other one who knew her true history, with keeping her safe, and he'd failed in that.

They reached Tsubaki's blue wagon, but it was dark, strangely. Tsubaki knew that they were on their way; she should have left the lantern lit for Maka. "Oh, Christ," he said after a moment, ears picking up certain sounds. He threw out a hand to stop her as she moved to open the small, flower-embossed door.

"What?" she said in confusion.

He put a hand over his face. This was ridiculous, and he was going to do something painful and creative to Black Star for making him deal with a situation this awkward. "They're busy," he settled on. Those two had probably figured they would have more time, but Maka walked very fast and it hadn't taken long to get back to the circus.

"They?" she repeated, raising an eyebrow. For a moment, wondering just how much she'd forgotten about life, he had nightmarish visions of having to explain the birds and the bees to her. Then, "Oh! Oh, no, no," she hissed, stepping back like the wagon was on fire. She turned on her heel and marched a good distance off, fingers plugging her ears even though they were now far out of earshot. He groaned at the entire situation and followed her. "I'm going to sleep in the hay," she informed him, face entirely pink.

"You can sleep on my floor," he said before even thinking about it. She looked dumbstruck, peering owlishly at him. "Hay is scratchy and it's cold out tonight," he snapped defensively. "Don't get the wrong idea."

"I wasn't," she said irritably, rubbing her forehead. "Are you sure?"

"Wouldn't have offered if I wasn't," he lied acidly, wondering what in the hell this green-eyed girl was doing to him.

She snorted, considered, then nodded. "All right. Thank you, really. I promise I won't talk or anything, I know how you hate that." He ignored her and her sarcasm as firmly as he could, heading toward his wagon and attempting to ignore his strangely galloping heart. He should have known he would do something stupid, but she'd just looked so hurt and frail sitting back there in the field, like a tiny wounded animal. He had a hidden soft spot for strays, and after the fight, his madness momentarily sated, well, of course he would do something this unutterably idiotic upon seeing her like that. If he wasn't lusting for blood he was a babbling spineless moron, it seemed, with nothing in between. Nonetheless, he'd already offered, and anyway, it really was chilly.

He cursed Black Star yet again, and himself, because he was really and truly troubled if he was scolding himself for inviting a girl back to his home for fear of secretly wanting to skin her. He should go talk to Lord Death soon and tell him that the rottenness in his head was growing. They had a deal. When Soul eventually became a danger to his friends, to the circus that had been his home for so long, Lord Death would put him out of his misery. It had been Soul's idea and it was really the only thing that assuaged his guilt over putting others in danger merely by being present. The first circus that had owned him no longer roamed the country, and it had been from the smoking ruins of it that Lord Death had found him, a weeping near-feral child. The Dire Circus would never meet that end; he'd promised himself that, long ago. His hands and his spirit were stained enough already.

She stepped inside his wagon gingerly and kept her eyes firmly on her feet, for which he was oddly grateful. If she'd been prying and curious it might have been too much. He lit his lantern and tossed a blanket and a pillow at her; she was unprepared and only just caught them.

"Thank you," she said automatically. If she was uncomfortable, she wasn't showing it. He knelt down in front of the bucket of water he kept full, for shaving and the like, and started scrubbing at the blood on his arms and hands. She laid the pillow down on the floor carefully and sat down beside it, pulling the blanket over her shoulders, though she didn't lie down. She still had that damn scythe with her and after a moment, she propped it delicately against the wall, as if it were made of glass. The look in her eyes said she was falling in love with it, a dangerous thing, because loving a weapon- and it was a weapon to her now, regardless of its original purpose- changed the way a person looked at the world. Seeing her with a blade in her hand was strange. It fit her, though. It spoke to the side of her he'd glimpsed when she'd slugged him in the jaw, shrieking theft, and again tonight when she threw her challenge right into the teeth of the murderer. Yet now she was small and sleepy and sad; she was so full of contrasts that it made his head spin. She hadn't gotten boring yet, anyway.

"Kind of a funny weapon," he said after a while, staring unblinkingly at the water in the bucket, now a fetching shade of pink.

"It just showed up. Seems like more than luck. I would've needed it if you three hadn't been there," she said quietly. He hummed wry agreement. She made a hesitant, soft noise, like she was about to say something but stopped herself halfway through.

"What?" he asked. Would she start the cruelty now that he'd let down his guard?

"You still have some in your hair," she told him. Her tone was deliberately neutral, though one hand was picking nervously at a loose thread in the blanket.

"Damn," he muttered, grabbing a shirt that needed to be laundered out of his hamper and scrubbing at his head.

"Missed it," she said. "Right. No, above your ear- can I just?" She held out a hand shyly. He leaned back a little, instinctively, and she withdrew it immediately, wilting like she really did want to help. "Sorry."

He argued with himself for a moment, but then he felt generally fine, as he usually did after a kill, so if she touched him, surely he wouldn't react like he had before, falling deep into the parts of himself he tried to keep hidden. Taking her hand in the field hadn't triggered anything. He took a breath and waded into deeper, darker waters. "No, it's fine. Would you mind?" He held out the damp shirt to her.

"All right." She took it delicately and crawled over to him on her hands and knees, which did funny things to his pulse, settled beside him, and parted his hair with slender, cool fingers as if it were entirely normal, a thing they did all the time. He stared fixedly at the trunk under his bed, behind which her satchel was safely hidden, and felt like an absolute piker, the worst kind of person, for keeping her history from her when it was so obviously causing her such pain. She was smart as a whip, and brave to boot; Lord Death had misjudged her. If he and Spirit had been honest with her, she might have been just fine on her own, and wouldn't have been put through all these trials. She rubbed at the bloodstain gently, fingers combing his hair out of the way, and against his will he shut his eyes for a moment, swallowing. It felt incredible. He couldn't remember the last time he'd voluntarily let someone touch him in a way that wasn't purely sexual or purely business, but this small blonde bearcat seemed to have wormed her way past his defenses, at least for tonight. "Done," she pronounced eventually.

"Uh. Thank you." He jumped up and nearly dove into bed, putting his back to her. It was probably the wisest course of action, considering the way his traitorous body was reacting to her ministrations.

"You're welcome," she said, a smile clear in her voice. He heard the sizzle as she licked her fingers and pinched out the lantern, and then the quiet rustling of fabric as she laid down. She drifted off almost immediately, judging by her breathing, but he lay stiffly awake all night, walled off from rest by the secrets stashed below him.

* * *

When she woke up, he was slouched lazily on his bed across from her, fully dressed except for his boots. Both of his socks had holes in them, she noticed drowsily. He'd just come back from washing up, judging by his tousled damp hair, and his nose was deep in a book. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, deciding that of her two choices on dealing with this situation, she would be nonchalant instead of embarrassed.

"Good morning," she said between several wonderfully jaw-cracking yawns.

"Are we friends?" he said abruptly, not looking up from his book. She stared at it to give herself time to think of an answer to such a question, wishing she could make sense of the ornate gold lettering stamped on the floral cover. It touched her, somehow, made her fingers itch, and for just a second she thought she recognized it, but then it was gone, washed away. She sighed. She was getting accustomed to those awful moments of almost remembering. It was like someone had built a wall in her mind, and just as she managed to wriggle a brick free, someone on the other side shoved a new one right back in.

"Yes," she told him, and she meant it fully. She'd taken the moment to think, to make sure, because something told her that this boy was taking his question very, very seriously, and therefore so should she. Her initial hatred had washed away in the face of the little glimpses of his true self she'd caught. She might be the type of girl to hold a grudge, but she wouldn't do so if it weren't merited.

"Why?"

"You're really talkative in the mornings," she groused, pulling the ties out of her pigtails and raking her fingers through it to restore some semblance of order. "Well. You helped me last night. I don't think you mean any harm. I mean, whatever you know, I think that you'd likely tell me if it was important." He grimaced at that, for some reason. "And you're nicer than you like to pretend. Besides, I'm not exactly overloaded with friends right now."

He grunted. She rolled her eyes and stood up, folding the blanket carefully before handing it to him. She felt like death warmed over. As she gave him the blanket, his crimson eyes flicked up for a second, meeting hers over the cover of his book. "You look awful," he informed her, but with much less poison than the words would normally have held, though they were still nowhere near friendly.

"I feel awful," she complained. For a moment, she hated herself for whining so about a bad night's sleep, when there was another girl lying dead on the street, but she pushed it aside. She couldn't handle that now. She needed time to process, or stomp it all down, or whatever it was she did to cope with terrible things. "All I want is a wash and the absolute hottest cup of coffee I can drink without dying," she continued. He snorted, the corner of his mouth drawing up just a little. "Is that how you smile?" she realized delightedly. It was so small that it was scarcely an expression at all, but it transformed him. It was more of a look in his eyes than anything else, really.

His face went blank immediately. She watched his defenses go up in fascination. "Don't be stupid," he said.

"You should smile when you want to," she told him, saddened by the thought of someone going through life without being able to show happiness. She'd noticed at some point that he even kept his head tilted down when he talked, his lips tight, to conceal his zig-zag teeth. "If people don't like your teeth, then they're probably useless and mean anyway." He raised an eyebrow and looked unaccountably confused, but then his mouth did that tiny curl again. She smiled back, shoved her feet into her boots without bothering to lace them, and left to brave Tsubaki's wagon-slash-love nest.

Tsubaki was waiting for her outside, looking nervous, with fresh lemonade at the ready. "I am so sorry, Maka, I am so sorry, I was just upset and we thought you'd be gone for longer and I am so sorry!" she squeaked out, flushing to the roots of her hair and proffering the lemonade like it was her last hope in the world. She really was adorable.

Faced with such abject sorrow, Maka couldn't help but laugh and take a mug. Hers was roughly shaped, as if it were handmade by a novice or maybe a child, glazed as richly, lushly purple as far-off mountains. "It's all right. I didn't realize you two were... ah... well. You know." She had an inkling that such going-ons were indecent, frowned-upon, perhaps even scandalous, but she couldn't bring herself to care. She'd seen the slump in Tsubaki's normally upright shoulders last night after putting her sword through that man. This thing they had chosen to do weighed on her, and if she found her comfort in Black Star's arms, well, that was nobody's business but her own.

Tsubaki gave a timid smile through her blush. "He's sweet under all the shouting," she said confidingly. "I really am so sorry, Maka, it won't happen again."

"It's your home, Tsubaki, not mine," Maka told her. She took a sip of the lemonade and sighed in appreciation. It wasn't coffee, but it was still tasty. "This is good."

"Thank you! I made it!" Tsubaki beamed. After that, pleasantries exhausted, they fell into a slightly tense silence. Last night, many more things had happened that needed discussion than just Tsubaki and Black Star's little tryst, but Maka didn't intend to bring them up. Their friendship was fragile, it was a tiny seedling still, and she intended to protect it. Whatever her past was, she would find out the truth if it killed her, but until then, this circus was her life and she wanted to enjoy it. She didn't think she was the kind of person who could live long without embracing life. It was a beautiful place she'd found herself in, despite the secrets, and the people were a constant joy, suprising her daily with their cleverness and heart. She would relish this experience while she still could, because there was a family and a home somewhere for her to return to eventually, a father missing her. The thought sparked an uneasy mixed emotion in her chest, not quite fear and not quite joy. Maybe her sudden zest for life was a blacklash against the things she'd just seen, against the expiring screaming spark in the dying girl's eyes, but it was no less genuine for having tragic origins.

"Oh," Tsubaki said suddenly, snapping her fingers. "Some of the girls came by and brought you some of their old clothes. They should fit you better than mine. Blair's about your height, and Mira is slender like you."

Maka swirled her lemonade, trying to hide the happy jolt that news gave her. It was subtle, but it was the circus reaching out to her, instead of her desperately trying to poke a hole in their wall. "That's wonderful," she said truthfully, but then something occurred to her. The timing of such generosity was awfully coincidental. Had the news about her escapades last night gotten out? Was the entire Dire Circus in on the secret killing? How deep did this thing go? Soul had said it wasn't the first time they'd done such a thing. Was the offering of clothing, which was really an open hand of friendship in the muted symbolic language of the circus folk, some kind of acknowledgement of her actions last night?

No. That was madness. She was spiraling into paranoia again, right in the face of all her resolutions to enjoy her time here with these good people. She shook her head firmly, laughing internally at her runaway imagination, and linked her arm with Tsubaki's, heading inside the pretty blue wagon. "I'll have to bring them some of your delicious lemonade as a thank you," she chirped. Today would be a good day. She would make it good. She would follow Tsubaki's lead, ignore the fact that they'd killed a man last night, and simply enjoy the lovely weather. It was naive, she knew, but part of her found it very difficult to be afraid under such a caressing, warming sun.

* * *

Lord Death managed to convey a sense of foreboding even with no visible facial features. It was, perhaps, the way his cloak grew more agitated, writhing up around him like hungry snakes. Soul kept his eyes trained on the floor as he reported, carefully leaving out any mention of Maka's escape attempt and unscripted nighttime appearance. When he was done, he waited, but instead of sending him away, or congratulating him on a successful job, or anything else more normal, his Lord leaned close and said slowly, "What's eating you, Soul?"

"Nothing, sir," Soul answered hastily.

"Is there anything else you want to tell me about last night?"

"No, sir. It all went according to plan. No one was injured. I checked on Tsubaki and Black Star this morning, they're fine," Soul said, trying very hard to keep his voice from shaking. He was lying, lying to the man who'd rescued him, who'd given him a chance at some sort of life, and he was doing it for reasons he couldn't even fathom himself. The best reason he could come up with for doing something so ungrateful was simply how sweetly soft her hands were when she washed the blood from him.

His Lord heaved a cavernous sigh that was not unlike a chill wind gusting from a mausoleum. "Well," he said idly, crossing his arms and tapping one long gloved finger on his elbow. "Well. Hmm. Soul, how have you been feeling lately?"

Soul considered that carefully, relieved that his lie had been accepted, but none too pleased with the subject change. "The same," he said at last, thinking the episode of madness that had sent him sprawling to the ground, and then, "Maybe a bit better," because he'd allowed the girl to touch him, to sleep undefended and trusting near him, and nothing terrible had happened. Yet both those states of mind had been prompted by her touch; he didn't know what it meant in the slightest.

"Well," Lord Death said again, more warmly this time. "That's very good to hear. We're packing up ahead of schedule, actually, can you inform everyone?"

"We're doing well here, though," Soul said in confusion. Generally they stayed at least a week minimum in one town; any shorter and the effort of travel and setting up simply wasn't worth it.

"We're going to Brooklyn," Lord Death told him. That was all he needed to say.

"Kid?" Soul breathed. "He's all right, then."

"Mm, yes. And the girls. They've uncovered a bit of a den of sin, it seems, we're going to be busy." Lord Death rubbed his hands together, almost ravenously. If there was one thing he loved besides pandering to a mesmerized crowd, it was wiping out evil.

"You're taking Maka into a place like that?" Soul blurted before he could stop himself. "Some protection."

Lord Death chuckled good-naturedly, apparently quite unaffected by such mutinous disrespect. "Word is already out that Spirit Albarn has returned to active duty. She wouldn't have been safe staying in their house alone, with no knowledge of anything. You know that. Someone would have gone after her eventually, one of Spirit's old enemies. She's safer with us."

"She can't even read," Soul spat, unaccountably enraged. "You overdid it."

Lord Death's masked head tilted unreadably. "She's safer with us, unless of course there's something you haven't told me?"

He knew. He knew, just as he knew everything that happened in his Dire Circus, and Soul's mouth went dry as a bone. There was no backing out now, though, and even though the betrayal soured his stomach he said stoutly, "No sir. I've told you everything."

"Then thank you very much, Soul, and have a good day," his Lord said softly, almost sadly. Soul stood up and left the shadowy wagon as calmly as he could manage. He had lied, to the man who had plucked him from the dregs of humanity, from a life as a sideshow freak chained in a cage, who had nurtured his musical gift and never shied away from the black sickness inside his mind. He'd lied, for emerald eyes and a sharp tongue and razor intelligence. He hated himself more than a little.

So when he saw her, sitting easily atop that beastly red horse and heading towards the big top, he snapped. He stalked up to her and planted himself in front of her mount, ignoring the creature's wet snuffling efforts to give him a good sniffing. "You," he snarled, feeling his fists clench. The madness was rising like the tide, unstoppable, and normally he would hide himself away, but normal wasn't part of the equation anymore since he'd met this blasted girl.

"Me," she returned equably enough, scratching her horse's withers and blinking down at him. "What's wrong?"

"You!" he repeated helplessly, words not enough for the depth of his chaos, feeling his lips skin back from his teeth like a rabid dog's.

She glared down at him icily, obviously offended by his demeanor. "What've I done so suddenly? We were fine earlier!"

"Don't talk to me about fine!" he snapped. Envy overtook him suddenly. This girl had had everything. She'd had a loving father, friends, a normal life, all the things he'd been denied because of nothing more than white hair and red eyes, an accident of birth. He looked at her carefully, beating back the terrible urges twisting his hands into fists. She was so untainted. Even watching a girl and her killer die in the same night hadn't tarnished her light. How could she stay so untouched? Everything awful he'd ever seen or experienced had stayed with him, indelible invisible scars that had hidden the infection of his thoughts until it burst forth into insanity. "I fucking hate you," he spat, barely able to hear himself over the bestial thumping of his own heart. Her face crumpled.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, fingers gripping her reins so tight they were going white.

"You're using me," he growled. "You're only being so nice because you think I know something. I'm not stupid. Even if you begged I wouldn't tell you, you spoiled ungrateful brat."

She bowed her head against the force of his rage. Her horse blew out a lazy breath, cocked a foot in relaxation, and lowered his head in an attempt to munch some grass while she was distracted. "No, Aka," she said distractedly, twitching on the reins. Aka desisted rather sulkily, flicking a copper ear back to her for a moment. "Can't it be both?"

It sent him whirling. "What?"

"I don't really want to lie to you," she said, lifting her eyes to his. "There's enough of that going around. I do think you know something about me, and I think that if I can convince you I'm not bad, maybe you'll tell me. But I also want to be your fr-"

"How do you know you're not bad?" he said quietly, coldly, stopping her before she could speak the word, watching her slim hands twined with leather and feeling something burning in him. The madness receded, just a hair, turned aside by her astonishing honesty. "Maybe you were a bad person. Maybe you got hurt, got dumped in the woods, because you did something awful. Maybe you deserved it."

"Well?" she said wearily. "Did I?" She heeled Aka forward and to the side of Soul, so that he was staring at her knee and the saddle now, and she was sitting above and right beside him. She wanted the height, an intimidation tactic to push the truth out of him. It almost made him laugh.

He looked up and the burning fire grew. The sun was behind her head, and it hit his eyes so brightly that he could only see her as the faintest shape, a pale shadow against the whiteness, an otherwordly spirit. Perhaps an angel? No, she had too much wildness in her heart, had raised that scythe in retribution too eagerly. He couldn't see her face, couldn't see those eyes, those eyes which hid so much hurt so well- but he could never miss hurt. His madness zeroed in on it, always, and it had been that bloodthirsty habit which fed his cruel words of a moment ago, preying on her fears. It had served him well years ago, when he was too young and weak to use anything but words as self-defense, but it had lingered even once he was safe with Lord Death, and he'd never been able to bite it back.

"No," he breathed. "You didn't, I don't think. You hit me in the face, though."

"Did you deserve that?" she asked, mouth tightening.

"About halfway, or a bit more," he said slowly. She snorted a little, a ghost of a laugh. "I suppose it can be both," he told her, reaching out to set a hand on her kneecap, blindly, fearfully, no less reverently than a newlywed groom undressing his bride.

"But the circus is first, and always," she said shrewdly.

He caught the hushed, throaty shake in her words and only just managed to take his hand away from her. He knew that she'd already accepted his soundless apology. "Yes."

"That's all right. I have to go. Tsubaki's going to let us start training with her," she said, cheerfully, patting her horse again. He squinted at her. She was smiling at him, heartstoppingly, even after whatever the hell had just happened between them, after his foul words.

"You've caught our masks," he said without thinking, awed and sickened in equal measures.

"I think perhaps I had it before," she said stonily, still wearing the beautiful wrenching smile, the one that went nowhere near her eyes, and then she pulled her horse's head around and trotted off.

* * *

FOOTNOTES

1: 'Broad' is a mild to seriously offensive term for a woman. It became much more common in the thirties, from what I can tell, but was in use as far back as the 1910's.

2: A 'piker' is a liar.

3: 'What's eating you?' was basically the '20s equivalent of asking what's up or what's going on.

4: 'Withers' are the top of a horse's shoulders.

5: As far as washing up/showering/bathing, most people of this time period simply took baths. Indoor plumbing wasn't something every house had! So I'm assuming circus folk just washed up in their quarters with water they carried in. I'm pretty sure Soul left and just scrubbed up in a river or pulled some water from a well, though. I don't think he's ready to get naked with Maka asleep on the floor quite yet. ;)

6: 'Aka' means red in Japanese. Remember, Aka is actually Morvich, but Tsubaki didn't know his name when Lord Death dumped him in her care, so she just named him that.

* * *

**Author says:** Hi everyone! I've gotten some super helpful reviews, thank you so much! I love them all. I seriously cannot tell you how much. Hope you enjoy this chapter. I tried to give a little more insight into Soul's past. Thanks everyone! :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Lusus naturae **[_loo_-suh s n_uh_-t_yoo_ r-ee], _noun_. 1: deformed person or thing; freak. 2: a jest of nature.

* * *

For six eternal days, he didn't speak to her. He stashed himself away in his wagon, swaying like a dying tree to the jostling of the caravan as it thundered down the railroad tracks, and read her books one after another, convulsively, putting his fingerprints over hers in way that was less possessiveness than it was searching. She watched him as they went about their daily business, and he watched her in return, eyes meeting in a way that was fast becoming both habit and secret pleasure for him. He didn't speak because he wasn't sure that the madness boiling his spirit down to nothing but sharp, needling edges wouldn't prompt him to shout at her again, and he didn't want to see her face collapse as it had before, falling into angry confused hurt that he'd never pulled from anyone in his life. They'd never cared in the same way that she did what his opinion was. It was better to watch from far away, where he couldn't wound her. He learned a lot, watching for those six days, though he couldn't bring himself to consider what she might have learned in turn, watching him watch her. He was too afraid she would take back what she'd offered, and he wasn't confident he could let it go without a fight.

He learned that she liked to trace her fingers over letters, wherever she found them, and that when she tied her hair up, it always took her several tries to get it right, which made her scowl and stomp around, adorably irritated. He found out that she carried the strangest things with her, hoof picks and a fork and occasionally a book of matches, stuffing her pockets as if she never wanted to be caught unawares. To Soul, that was a particularly revealing piece of information. She hadn't felt the need to carry those emergency things in her satchel, so the fact that she needed them now was silent testimony to how wrong-footed she really was in her new patchwork life. After that, he found out that she talked to herself under her breath, lips miming gently to the wind whenever she was caught up in doing something. The fourth day, he found out quite by accident that she had a birthmark like an ink stain on her chest, because a button popped off her shirt and she didn't notice for ten hazardous, toothsome minutes, time that he tried diligently to memorize. The morning of the sixth day, he found out that when he didn't see her, he missed her, and that discovery sent him into such a flailing and frantic black mood that no one except Black Star, ever foolhardy and oblivious to anything but himself, dared to talk to him all day.

It was the morning of the seventh day that they spoke again, the seventh day that the Dire Circus had been on the long road to Brooklyn, with no rest and no stopping anywhere on the horizon, something they were generally used to but all hated. Even the animals were restless; Blair's lions filled the air with rumbling roars whenever the caravan stopped, and the dogs were silent and wary like hungry wolves, so disturbed-looking that he made sure to feed them a little extra. It had all put a sort of heavy atmospere over the circus, like the air before a thunderstorm, crackling with potential destruction, and it went to Soul's head like wine. It seemed he always needed some sort of push to speak to her, whether it was the lazy release after a kill, or sparking fury, or a command from his Lord. This time, the dense mood of perfomers denied their art pulled him off the cliff. When he passed her and Blair standing around, chatting about what sounded suspiciously like a comparison of the cuteness of different kinds of baby animals, he had enough confused sizzle and backwards longing built up to stop and stroke a piece of hay out from her wayward sunrise mop.

"Hay," he explained, hoping he looked far less nervous than he felt. Blair gaped at him unashamedly, twirling a strand of her outlandish purple-dyed hair, and as he walked off, he heard her squealing like a malfunctioning automobile.

"Are you and piano boy up to something interesting and debaucherous?" rose her voice, slyly connotative and yet genuinely excited, in the way only Blair could manage.

"Mind your potatoes," Maka snapped, and he knew pleasantly, without having to look back, that she would be flushing. He was out of earshot after that, but he considered the endeavor a success, though it took awhile to figure out if he was happy or horrified with himself. The madness had no opinion, except that she would be even more beautiful without her ivory silk skin. He disagreed, but then his madness never asked for his permission.

The evening of that seventh day, she returned his gesture, taking the next short step in their stilted faraway dance. He answered the knock on his trailer door only after long deliberation, because he was exhausted from travel and his fingers were sizzling painfully with pent-up melodies. "Oh," he said rather unenthusiastically to her face, unsure what to do as she stood on his doorway. His black doorframe surrounded her, edged her like she was a painting, the flicker of the lantern she was carrying painting glints of gold and shining white on her skin, traces of color that he wanted to follow with his tongue. Coming from the darkness, she seemed like an otherwordly visitor, a messenger from Avalon sent to guide him to eternal slumber. He glanced to either side of his trailer, as they'd stayed hooked up tonight on the tracks, in a nice neat line, and saw no one anywhere, though he could hear one of the lions making noise about something or other. It seemed they were all keeping to themselves this evening, fitting behavior considering the dour mood of the circus.

She smiled a little, though her eyes stayed mildly wary, and held up an obnoxiously purple and slightly lopsided mug. She was wearing practical, almost mannish clothing, her lips were unpainted, and her hair was loose and long. She was the polar opposite of the bobbed, feathered, slyly laughing child-women in vogue right now, but she was so much more intriguing. He thought wryly that she made the last woman he'd spent the night with look coarser than a knot on a pine bough, even as unpolished as she was. "I brought you lemonade. Tsubaki showed me how to make it. Apparently fruit grows on trees! Isn't that just mad? It comes from the flowers. I couldn't believe it at first," she said.

"Indeed," he said, amused in spite of himself at her rampant joyous discovery. "Did you poison it?'

She tilted her head as if considering. She looked ethereal, but also tired. She'd lost weight, he thought suddenly, weight she could ill afford to miss; her cheekbones were more pronounced than ever and there was something hollow in her face, an emptiness. All the lies were eating away at her, slow poison, and it was at least half his fault. He followed the gilded thread of lantern light as it limned her neck and felt something primordial tighten in him. "Mm. You'll never know unless you try it, will you?" she said lightly.

He snorted, only finding out that she was teasing him after a short scared moment of thought. "I'm not that curious."

"Oh, yes you are," she said laughingly, thrusting the mug at him more insistently. "I saw you eyeing that pocket watch of Stein's. You want to take it apart, don't you?"

How well she read him, and after so short a time knowing each other. He stepped aside with only a faint stutter in his heartbeat and she took the hint, stepping up and inside, still juggling two mugs and the lantern. "A little. I want to take most things apart," he said, keeping a careful watch on her to see if she would take the warning. She did. She met his gaze firmly and pressed the violet mug into his palms to show she didn't care. His lungs turned inside out, and when his breath returned, he added, a slight wispy stab at revenge, "Been watching me, have you?"

She slit her jeweled fairy eyes at him and took a noisy slurp of her lemonade in a thoroughly undignified manner. "It's only fair, considering you've been keeping a nice close watch on me like Lord Death wants."

He slammed his mug down on his sole tabletop so hard that it cracked. She put her back up against the door, her eyes dilating as he stared at her, and her reaction made it all too clear to him how he must look just then. He turned his monster's face away from her and pulled on his hair as hard as he could, using the hot pain to ground himself. "Is that what you think?" was the only thing he could bear to say.

"Isn't it true?" she said from behind him, in obvious confusion.

He whipped around and was an inch away from her in half a heartbeat, planting his arms against the wall on either side of her face, enraged and volcanic that she could think so little of him, despite his logical knowledge that she could have no idea of the turmoil her mere presence had put him through. He'd been shook up since the moment he met her, a small thief clad in boyish boots, draped in books and hoarded words, stealing through his circus and hiding her terror deep down inside with strength he could only wonder at. She didn't move, though they both knew she could have. Instead, she sighed and leaned her head back against the wall, submissive in a calculated fashion, trying to lead him into calmness by being calm herself, just as she did with her red horse, staring off over his shoulder into nothingness with wide cavernous eyes as he scraped his nails into the maroon paint of his walls. "I suppose I was wrong," she whispered an endless while later. His trailer seemed claustrophobic, unable to contain all the static filling it, and his head felt the same.

"Yes you were," he growled vindictively, unsure of why he was so angry at her assumption, but incapable of smothering the feeling. She wasn't pinned, but she was, trapped in the box of his arms, and his madness should have been a wildfire of murderous longing at the sight of her so vulnerable. It should have been, but as soon as she put a hand on his cheek, it wasn't. Her hand was hot yet careful, and he pushed into it involuntarily, sighing. Her palm felt like a jungle wind against his face and the madness stopped boiling.

"Well, then, I'm sorry," she said, though she didn't seem all that apologetic. In fact she seemed a little irritated. "I'm not very good at reading people yet, and anyway, you're especially difficult."

He laughed out loud, for the first time he could remember in a very long time, throwing his head back and letting the peals of his long-forgotten mirth drive away the acrid shadows of his home. "You're only just four weeks old," he managed, putting his forehead against the back of one of his hands where it rested against the wall. "That's not a lot of time to become a good judge of character!"

She exhaled slowly, stutteringly, next to his ear, and it stilled him instantly as he became electrically aware of their closeness. Her rasping breath said that she was terrified and unsure, but her voice said that she was handling it, or trying, at least. "I don't think I'm terrible at it," she said in a measured sort of way, still looking off over his shoulder. "Your lemonade is dripping on the floor."

It had been a chill few days as they headed northeast, a throwback to the winter just past and a symptom of current, bipolar spring, and now in the cold evening, the heat rising from her skin was tangible, appetizing, tantalizing in a way that weakened his knees. "Too bad," he said, truthfully, because she had brought it to him, had taken the time to think of him, and lemonade did sound pleasant, though not as much as nibbling on her collarbone. "Was it good?" He saw with distant satisfaction that she had goosebumps on her satin fire flesh. His madness reached, hard.

"Yes. Go on, try mine, if you like," she said.

He watched the shapes her lips made as she spoke and wondered blindly at the strange thing occurring in his chest. It was reminiscent of the way he'd felt when he had finally played a piece before a cheering, worshipful crowd without a single mistake- divine, invincible, a conquerer of empires and a sinker of ships. It had been Domenico Scarlatti's Sonata in F minor, and he could never hear the opening notes without feeling his heart leap into his mouth. "But I don't want to move," his insanity whispered, colorless and bold, and then he had to dig his nails into his own clenched fists to keep from blazing a trail with tongue and teeth down her swan's neck. He tried to remind himself that grown men wouldn't row a boat through a swan's territory. They were beautiful, but they were dangerous.

She drew in a breath sharply, almost a gasp, but otherwise did nothing else in reaction to his words, though her brow furrowed in a way he couldn't interpret. Her hand against his face was light, the touch of a mythical creature, or maybe his imagination, but then he'd never dared to dream of anything like this. "What are you doing," she said at last, voice raspy.

"No idea," he said simply. He didn't move.

"I don't think I like to be caged," she answered roughly, turning her face a little to the side so she could watch him cautiously out the corner of her eye, like the feral thing that she was under the all the sugary compliance the circus and perhaps society had corralled her into.

He let his arms fall and freed her, pondering the way she could accept the worst of his words but wavered under impending contact that wasn't entirely under her own control. She sighed gustily, closing her eyes for a long moment, still frowning, and just when he thought he'd read her fully, knew all her ways, she showed him a new angle. "Will it be bad if I touch you?" she murmured, as if she weren't already cupping his face, as if her whole body wasn't quaking like a fawn before him. Her voice was cool and balmy, a thread of steel running through it, close to perfect. How could she know what her touch did to him, how it stirred up all the things he tried so very hard to keep buried? But then, she'd been watching him too, and he didn't think she missed much. Anyway, she wasn't speaking in literal terms. They both knew that this conversation had more hidden depths than the seven seas.

He laughed yet again, more intoxicated each time she spoke. "Very probably," he told her honestly. It was so much more enjoyable to feel her touch than simply to watch.

She swallowed hard. She was afire, tingling, all her nerves melded into a map of the places he'd run his eyes over, and her spirit was a trembling abashed earthquake. "Bushwa," she said daringly. They way he was watching her, the way he'd been watching her for the past days, she had known as soon as she came to his wagon that something would happen, but she hadn't expected him to surround her so so fully, hadn't expected the hidden heat in his eyes to bring about such a whirlwind of fearful trepidation inside her. She felt in danger of losing herself, of collapsing into him, so she took her hand from his face. "It would be fine," she told him carefully, as his crimson eyes lingered hotly on her face, making her want to run as fast as she'd ever done, making her want to stay always. She shook inside her own thundering skin and wished it were chain mail, to protect her from this new thing. This was quite a lot to deal with, and she didn't know what kind of girl she was yet, if she should wind her arms around his neck or slap him and dart to safety, though she was leaning strongly towards the latter. Blair would advise her to first jump on top of him, then follow up with several things Maka wasn't even sure were physically possible. Tsubaki would blush and stutter and then just tell Maka to follow her heart. Black Star would cackle for days and then say something horrifically vulgar; none of the few people populating her haunted world could help her with this. She had to soldier through herself, for the sake of the person she kept catching glimpses of in his depths, and for whatever he knew of her past, though she was no longer absolutely certain of which was her first priority.

"It would be fine," she told him again, and he grasped her meaning this time. She saw it in the flutter of his eyelids, the raw half-twist of his lips that said he understood what she was saying about the thing inside him. She'd been studying him just as he'd been watching her, and she'd seen it, seen it in the way he ate his meat bloody rare and deliberately stayed far away from anything sharp, in the way his expression would sometimes morph to something sickly and entirely, fully, primitively wrong.

"I can't guarantee that, bearcat," he breathed sorrowfully, searchingly, a warning of many things. What had happened to him, to smother the light she could almost see when she was with him? One of the bricks in the wall crumbled away then, for a bare second, and she felt her instincts screaming and screaming for escape, that he was dangerous, untrustworthy, and then a tiny part of her hated her faceless father and longed for her unknown mother simultaneously. Before the brick grew back, she drowned in the murky feel of betrayal that flooded her for no concrete reason. At least there was one thing she knew without a doubt about her past; she had had a mother and a father. No one in the world could escape that. It was a fleeting shred of comfort.

They looked at each other for a wide-eyed moment, standing a whisper apart in the suddenly airless wagon. She could see that now, the adrenaline fading, he was doubting himself already, waiting for her to run or shriek or hurl abuse. It was written in the slump of his shoulders and the careful half-lidded way of his eyes, and it made her want to package him up and stow him in a safe place, where nothing could hurt him anymore. It killed the reactive desire rising inside her to smack him upside the head for taking such liberties with her personal space, and for looking at her with such tell-tale lustful eyes; it would hurt him too badly, no matter how miffed and confused and panicked she was, so for once she reined in her impulsive temper. She took the unbroken mug, her mug, and slid down the wall to the floor, taking a sip and pushing the odd parental flashback from her mind for the moment. "Bearcat?" she asked, feeling her lips curl in a smile of their own accord as he blinked at her in that cautious wanting way he had.

"Black Star came up with it," he said dismissively, back to ice in the blink of an eye, sitting down across from her. "Give me some."

"Rude! Say please," she protested sharply, waving the mug of lemonade out of his reach. "You need manners! And it's not my fault you broke yours!"

"Christ. Please," he said grudgingly, rolling his eyes exaggeratedly. She handed him the drink and he sniffed carefully before drinking.

"I promise I didn't poison it," she snickered. Her pulse was close to normal now, thank goodness.

He glowered at her over the rim of the cup. She raised a brow and folded her arms as if she were mortally offended, and he shook his head . "Anyway," he said at last, staring into the lemonade as if it held all the knowledge in the world. It appeared he wanted to ignore the thing that had just happened, and she was all right with that, because his face as he leaned so close to hers had been secretly, illicitly thrilling, but it had also been hungry in a sort of way that made her highly aware of just how much damage his teeth could do if he really wanted. "What are you doing here?"

"Lemonade," she answered innocently.

"Of course," he said dryly, with only half his habitual roughness, flicking the puddle beside him on the floor that had dripped down from the broken cup. The lantern light put a halo around his angular face, a kind of gentle swaying glow that only accentuated the strong line of his jaw and the tiny lift of his lips that she just barely caught. She turned her eyes away, still not at all sure what to think about him, about what she felt about him. In coming here she'd simply wanted company and a little release for her curiousity, not this tightrope waltz over a canyon. It had worn her out. She wanted sleep and solitude and a good book so badly that it hurt, and the rememberance of her illiteracy made her throat close in pure searing pain.

"You'd best clean that up or you'll get ants," she said idly, trying not to think about it all. Avoidance seemed to be a much preferred coping mechanism for her; in a way, it make the amnesia oddly appropriate.

He shot her an incredulous glance. "I didn't know my housekeeping was your business," he said sourly.

"You're actually rather neat. Black Star's wagon is just a full blown disaster," she said, looking around from her seat on the floor, for the first time feeling safe enough to do so. His home was small, sparse, with nothing on the walls but drearily featureless curtains and dark red paint. There wasn't a thing that was brightly colored or cheerful. He didn't appear to have much of anything that was simply for personal pleasure, though she did see a book halfway buried under the sheets of his unmade bed. The she squinted into the darkness under his bed, something stirring from the grave of her memories, a shape or a scent, she didn't know, but it hooked her deep inside, and she leaned forward to see better. Was it a bag? It looked-

He grabbed her shoulder with crushing force and the next thing she knew, she'd been thrown backwards into the wall. The back of her head smacked into it stingingly. "Nosy!" he spat. She could only watch him in open-mouthed incomprehension, but after a second, anger started to grow. Every time she turned around he was changing, treating her like an enemy, and she had no idea why.

"That hurt!" she growled ominously, rising to her feet like a puppet on strings. How dare he manhandle her so. Did he think she would just allow such treatment, that she was a victim waiting to be bullied as he did with everyone else? If he did, he had a painful reacquaintance with reality coming like a freight train.

"Poor girl," he shot back sharply, though she thought maybe she saw regret flash in his eyes.

Her fists clenched, temper igniting her bloodstream, and his eyes shot down to them in a fashion that told her more than any of his words yet had. She took a deep, measured breath and forced her hands to relax, though she still battled an urge to return his attack, and with some interest. "Soul, I'm not going to turn on you," she said hesitantly, forcing down the sharp tones in her voice. It wasn't quite what she wanted to say, but it was close, so it would have to do for now. Not for the first time, she thanked the heavens that she hadn't forgotten how to speak, because the stunned befuddled expression he was wearing just then was nothing short of adorable.

"That so," was all he said, but she didn't miss his miniature mouth twitch, the stunted shriveled thing that served him for a smile. She wished he would laugh again, because that had been stunning, raw and throaty and unpracticed.

She just made a face at him. He raised an eyebrow, looking put-out and bemused, and she tried to see him through other's eyes, through the eyes of those vicious cruel people who had been so awful to him that he simply assumed he was always about to be hurt. It didn't work. She just saw a sad, scared boy who hid behind sharp teeth and nightmare eyes. "I do think I like hitting people, but I'll try very hard not to hit you if you don't deserve it," she informed him finally. "But don't test me too much!"

His eyes darkened, suddenly and strongly, like clouds rolling over the sun. She remembered, with an internal kind of earthquake, that he had told her she'd struck him in the face the first time they met. How well did they really know each other?

What if she already had a boy waiting for her somewhere, a boy who knew the taste of her lips? For all she knew, she was married with children. She pressed a hand to her stomach in sick fear. The things she'd forgotten could be so much more than she'd considered so far. How old was she? What if she had some terrible disease lurking inside her, or an allergy that could kill her at any moment? Was her mother dead, and that was the reason she had a stronger impression of her father than mother, though both were nearly nonexistent? If her mother was dead, and now forgotten as well by her child, that seemed even worse, another death piled atop the first. Guilt made her reel. Her family, her people, they must be out of their minds with worry, and here she was drinking lemonade and laughing with a pretty boy; she didn't deserve to be missed. She felt nauseous, hot, feverish and roasting away from the inside out. Her own body was lying to her, keeping secrets, and she lifted her hands before her face to stare at them as if they were cobras before stumbling to her feet and diving out the door.

She ended up on her hands and knees in the chunky storm-gray rocks lining the railroad tracks, emptying her stomach as soon as she touched ground. There was a buzzing in her ears like a thousand angry insects, a plague. Someone was talking in her ear; she ignored them, crawling away from her vomit and feeling not unlike a dying animal in her wish to hide in a dark corner.

Finally Soul's voice penetrated her ears. "Maka, god, what in the hell's wrong with you?"

"Wonderful bedside manner," she hissed, shutting her eyes as tightly as possible. "I want my life back! I hate this! I absolutely cannot do this anymore, I can't- I can't not know, the not knowing is worse than anything!"

He was standing about ten feet from her, hands shoved in his pockets in a way that made her think he had no idea what to do. "I see," he said.

"I am so twisted up," she sighed, feeling the sharp rocks dig into her knees. She sat up slowly, feeling a thousand years old.

"I know that feeling," he murmured. "Least you got out of my trailer before doing that. Thanks."

"Keep being so rude and next time I won't bother," she shot back, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and wishing she didn't feel so close to tears.

He disappeared and returned with the lemonade she'd abandoned. "Here."

She took a gulp, swished it around in her mouth, spat it out, and repeated the process until the mug was empty. "I worked so hard to make this for you," she said mournfully.

"Really?" he said, in an odd way. She looked up at him, at his hair, turned lavender in the incomplete darkness, and his eyes, the color of dried blood, and thought about the way he'd moved as he tortured the murderer.

"Yes," she said finally.

"I hate sour things," he admitted, as if it were a mortal sin.

"Sour! It's not!" she protested. "I put in sugar."

"Not enough," he muttered, pushing a hand through his hair. It was especially wild right now, but then it always was, far from the neat tamed styles that were usually favored by men. She didn't think he would look right with it controlled, though. "Thanks, though."

"Mm," she said neutrally. At least he wouldn't want to do whatever it was he'd done to her in the wagon now, getting so close to her, not with sweat slicking her forehead and after seeing her vomit. Maybe she should just try to make herself as repulsive as possible, and then she could avoid this new thing too, along with everything else chasing after her. She pushed herself upright, ignoring the aching wrench of her muscles, sore from the endless work she'd been pushing through, from all the hay bales she'd tossed and the things she'd carried and packed in an effort to still her circling thoughts. "I need sleep, I think," she groaned.

"Good night, then," he said dismissively, already turning away.

She glowered at his back. "You make trying to be nice just so very worthwhile," she gritted sarcastically before turning and stalking off, one hand on her head and one on her unsettled stomach. She didn't see him watch her go.

* * *

He was failing miserably at sleeping, fingers drumming out a beat onto his wall, when footsteps thumped audibly onto his roof. He was upright and had the window unlocked immediately, familiar by now with Black Star's monkey-like preference for heights. The other boy dropped in unceremoniously, filling the wagon with the rich smell of the oil he used to clean his various blades.

"Sheep again. To the north, about four miles, too close," he said, not mincing words, every line of his body speaking danger.

"Damn," Soul said. He hadn't expected this. A regular human-style killer was dangerous enough, but last time they'd gone after the kind of thing that liked to bleed livestock dry, it had been one hell of a rumble all around. "Meet at the front car in ten?"

"Yes," Black Star answered, already turning to hop back out the window and collect Tsubaki. "Whatever's makin' you look so disturbed, you'd best come to terms with it, right now, because this is going to be tough," he added over his shoulder as he disappeared. When he was like this, the smell of a fight in his nose, he was more like a drill sergeant than his usual outrageous demeanor would ever suggest. Soul spared just a moment to heave an aggravated sigh before sitting down on his bed to lace up his boots. He looked at his door before pushing it open, trying to recall what Maka had looked like as he barricaded her in his arms against it, the smell of her, the way her blush dusted out under her light freckles, but there was too much in his head to enjoy it. It was a distraction, anyway, so he pushed through it and nearly ran up the line of train cars, trying to stay as silent as he could, though the rocks were unavoidably loud under his feet. Blair, Stein and Mira would be on watch already over the circus animals, so all that he had to worry about was staying alive and making sure his enemy didn't. Piece of cake, except it wasn't, not in this case.

Tsubaki and Black Star were already there beside the engine, two shadow-wrapped shapes lurking before him. As he drew closer, he saw Tsubaki's tattoos roiling in the light of the lamp she carried, crawling about in agitation, a sure sign that something was wrong, beyond just the upcoming skirmish; she'd been at this long enough that he didn't believe she felt much fear. "What?" he asked, hushing his voice to a bare breath.

"Black Star woke Maka up when he came to get me," she groaned, clutching a piece of her long hair distractedly. That told him all he needed to know. There was no way Maka would be content with allowing her friend to sneak away in the middle of the night with no explanation, especially considering what she'd seen them do to a murderer a week ago.

Soul put a hand to his forehead for a moment. That damn girl was far more trouble than she was worth. "Shoulda just told her you two were off to have some fun," he grunted.

Black Star snorted gleefully, but Tsubaki turned ferociously red. "I didn't think- I just- I couldn't think of a thing to say!" she said plaintively. "She can be very intimidating for someone so small!" A peacock spread its tail aggressively across her shoulder and a koi migrated lazily onto her neck with a flip of its speckled orange tail.

"It's jake, we locked her up when she got feisty about things," Black Star said with a waggle of his eyebrows, one hand already rolling a tiny blade across his knuckles.

Soul could only shake his head in horror. "She'll find a way out," was all he could say. Trust Black Star to muck things up. If Maka were to get out, to somehow come looking for them- and he had a feeling her insatiable curiousity would drive her to do just that- she would be alone in the night, a night that was oozing danger right now. He turned around to go back, to tell her to stay put somehow, but Black Star and Tsubaki had already taken off in one of those uncanny displays of harmonious thinking they sometimes fell into, and he had no choice but to jog after, albeit much less gracefully, feeling fearful snow drifting over his heart with each step. The chaos in his head and his spirit were miring down his feet, and dread dogged his heels.

It was a long way they had to go into the farmlands surrounding the railroad tracks, and by the time the metallic scent of blood hit his nose, he was panting and dripping sweat despite the cold night air. Even Black Star was breathing a little harder than usual, which was gratifying. A spray of vibrant red stars had splashed up onto Tsubaki's cheek, a warlike shadow of what would soon come, and her eyes were intense as she gazed out at the mutilated bodies of several sheep. "I hate this, oh, those poor darling things, they shouldn't have died," was all she had time to whisper. Just as she turned to them, hand on the hilt of her sword, a scorched writhing thing, with crackling skin stretched paper-thin over curling barbed bones, dropped down from the tree above her and sent her flying, face lovely and perfectly astonished as she sailed through the air. When she hit the ground, she tumbled over and over through the underbrush like a doll and, when she finally stopped, didn't move.

The noise that Black Star made was so vicious that it was just as inhuman as the thing that was circling around them drunkenly, wobbling and cackling. It looked like a woman, perhaps, or something that had once been a woman, at least judging by the incongruously feminine, brunette raggedness atop its head, the only thing left that wasn't burned to a sickening layer of crisp soot. Its lips had been scorched away, the exposed teeth showing gray and bloodstained, and the wings spreading from her back were almost splendid in their sheer leathery size. The last time he'd seen someone so overtaken by evil, he'd almost run, unable to face the specter of his own future. This time, he glanced at Tsubaki's still form as Black Star bent over her and wanted only to bleed it dry. The smell in the air was turning his stomach. He really, really wished Stein would finish his blasted unholy experiments and figure out what in the hell it was that was turning these awful people into walking bad dreams. Perhaps it was just pure evil leeching out of their souls into their flesh. Anyway, it had to be stopped.

"I am going to fucking kill you," he snarled, baring his own beast teeth and leaping for the thing's throat. It slid to the side and buffeted him with a wing, shockingly hard for something that looked so insubstantial, and through the gong thundering in his skull he just managed to duck under the overgrown claws aimed at his face. "Shit," he said to no one, stumbling, trying to clear his head. Black Star was still with Tsubaki from what little he could see in the moonlight, and here he was trying to take this monstrosity out by himself. It was going to be a long night. He recalibrated himself and launched a fresh attack.

"We're dancing," the thing crooned as they fought. He almost missed a step. He hadn't thought she could talk.

"Sorry, my card's full for the night," he grunted, ducking under her talons and only just missing a good blow at her leg.

The burned monster just giggled, a truly awful sound, and then she froze for a split second. He darted forward to take advantage of her momentary distraction, but she was up in the trees again with a single flap of those massive bat wings. He cursed. He needed Black Star here, with his throwing stars and multiple knives, because Soul was only good at melee. He couldn't do distance, and if she flew off then more animals would die, and eventually more people once she got bored with her meals. "Get down here, you bitch!" he shouted vainly.

"Company, company," she trilled distractedly, cocking her head.

"Fuck," he said to no one, apprehension trailing icy fingers up his spine. He knew exactly what the monster hunched above him meant. Maka had gotten out and was coming, following the trail they hadn't bothered to hide. Fighting through brush and mud left clear enough signs for anyone with a brain to follow. "Fuck!"

He picked up a big rock and threw it as hard as he possibly could, brained the monster quite nicely, and she fell off her perch with a keening shriek. He only allowed himself a moment's satisfaction. He had to take care of this, and quickly, before Maka wandered unarmed into the middle of the fray. He ran at the gargoyle woman, allowed her to dig her claws into his shoulder, sacrificing a little blood for the chance to split her throat open, and he had just touched her charcoal skin when she kicked him away, putting a foot into his chest so hard that he flew like a bird for a few seconds. He was too slow. He hadn't been training, he had never been anything special in a fight anyway, and he was alone with something much stronger than he was, and now he was too dizzy to stand. Death was near. He put a hand up slowly, blinking at the dark silhouette approaching, and wondered through the fog in his thoughts why there was something sticky and hot on the back of his head. He needed to move, needed to get up, needed to not die, but everything was so blurry. Was he underwater? He made it to his knees, barely, and then she kicked him in the ribs again and the fog increased as pain rocketed through him.

Then she screamed, except it wasn't the monster, it was someone else. He blinked as hard as he could, praying that Tsubaki was all right, praying that Black Star would come save his damn life soon. The spinning shapes before his eyes slowly solidified and he cursed the entire universe for allowing this to happen, because there was Maka, snarling in the flicker of the lamp Tsubaki had dropped as she kicked the monster back. Maka did seem to like kicking. He started to crawl, because he had to do something even if he couldn't stand past the ringing in his head.

"Stay back," she barked. He looked up. She was in front of him, between him and the blackened woman-thing, that stupid scythe at the ready, with the emerald fire back in her eyes. Had she been born without any fear in her? He couldn't understand it. She was facing this hellish thing as if it were Sunday tea.

"No, no," he tried to tell her. His tongue felt very thick. She had no idea what she was getting into.

She ignored him, which wasn't all that suprising, though it was surprising when she punched the charging monster square in the face and then lopped off one of its arms as it stumbled back. He squinted through the veil over his eyes. They were moving so fast. He thought he saw blood on Maka, but he couldn't tell whose it was. He couldn't tell anything. His head hurt so very much. He closed his eyes and the familiar midnight came to spirit him away.

* * *

FOOTNOTES

1: 'Mind your potatoes' is essentially twenties lingo for 'mind your own business'.

2: 'Bushwa' means nonsense.

3: 'Jake' means good or fine. Black Star is saying everything is cool.

4: When Soul says his card is full, he's sarcastically referring to an old tradition when women had little cards on which they wrote down their dance partners for the evening, at a ball or whatnot. This isn't twenties tradition, it's older than that.

5: I know I haven't talked about what Soul uses to fight with yet. It's coming! ;)

* * *

**Author says: **Sorry this took so long to put up! I wrote myself into a corner there for a while. Hope you all enjoy, and thank you again sososo much for all the wonderful reviews and favorites/follows! :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Burgeon **[_bur_-juh n], _verb._ 1: To grow or develop quickly; flourish. 2: To begin to grow, as a bud.

* * *

"Come on, come on, wake up," was the first thing he heard, faraway frantic sobs, followed by, "You absolute moron!" Then someone slapped him across the face, which irritated him enough that he bothered to open his eyes.

"I was sleeping," he groused to Maka's furious face. It wasn't until he saw the pain on it, and the blood, that he came back to full awareness and complete recollection of what had just happened. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck," he chanted dumbly as agony flooded freshly through his skull. It felt like he had at least a few cracked ribs, too, judging by the lightning in his side with every breath.

"Versatile word," she murmured wearily. "No, don't sit up. You hit your head." She held up scarlet hands with a half-hearted smile to illustrate her point.

"Mine?" he said in utter confusion, staring at the beautiful blasphemy staining her small hands. It felt like he'd been whacked on the cranium with a sledgehammer, and his vision still wasn't entirely clear. He would bet all he owned that he had one hell of a concussion, and hopefully nothing worse.

"Some of it. Black Star says head wounds bleed a lot. I was really- I was- it's not as bad as it seems."

"Are you all right, then?" he whispered.

She smiled more fully, watching him with a look in her eyes he didn't understand in the least. "Mostly."

Just then Black Star appeared over her shoulder. "Shit, Soul, you really got yourself hurt," he said interestedly, peering down at him.

Soul decided to ignore that comment, along with his injured pride. "Tsubaki?" he said instead.

"She's all right, for now, but we need to get her back to Stein," Black Star said worriedly, glancing over his shoulder. He was playing with one of his tiny throwing knives again, twirling it anxiously between two fingers.

"I'm fine, really, don't rush him," came Tsubaki's distant, wispy voice, always accomodating to the point of ridiculousness. Soul sighed and shut his eyes again. Everyone was alive. Maka hadn't died. She had fought that thing- at the thought, he sat bolt upright and promptly howled at the pain it brought, but it didn't stop him from grabbing her by the shoulder and shaking her.

"What the hell were you thinking, woman?" he shouted blearily, clutching his screaming ribs with his free hand. "What were you doing here?"

"Ow ow ow ow," she whimpered, scrabbling at his wrist. "Soul, don't, ouch!"

He took his hand away like she was on fire and squinted at her. There was a bright patch of scarlet seeping across her shoulder, over the cool mint green of her blouse. He bit his lip harshly at the wrongness of seeing her blood, at last, like this. The madness had told him that it would be spilled because of him, but he'd never imagined she'd lose it while defending him, never in a thousand years. "I didn't know. How bad is it?"

"I already checked her out. She'll be all right, but I think Stein's going to have to put some stitches in her," Black Star interjected. Maka looked terrified at the very thought.

"What happened?" he asked again, looking around and seeing nothing but humans in the circle of light shed by the battered little lamp.

"We need to get Tsubaki safe," Maka said, looking tired and confused and a bit frightened, though why she chose now to be scared instead of while fighting for her life was beyond him. "Come on." She helped him up slowly and he hated himself for being so weak even as his head spun wildly.

Black Star scooped Tsubaki up in his arms and she drooped against him, very pale, clutching her dark blade to her chest like a child would hold a doll. He adjusted her long hair carefully, so it wouldn't trail down and catch in the branches, took up the miraculously unbroken lantern in one hand, and they all started home, Soul and Maka leaning on each other because possibly neither would have been much use otherwise. Through the hammer blows falling on his head he thought that it was rather nice, feeling her arm around his waist, being allowed to drape his own over her shoulders. She was sweaty, shaky, and looked not unlike she had just before puking earlier in the day. He probably looked about the same. He tried his hardest not to jostle her shoulder, and she tried to support him without touching his white-hot ribs too much, and they hobbled onward at an agonizingly slow pace. The woods were dead silent, all nighttime life having wisely fled.

"I'm sorry," he said after a while, bending his wounded head down to her ear. The words were much easier to say than he'd thought they would be.

She glanced up at him strangely. "Why?"

"You got hurt," he said stupidly.

She pressed her lips together in a thin line, sternly, but her eyes were liquid and shining. "Worth it," she said, raising an eyebrow. He relished her warm softness against him, the perfect balm for a night gone wrong.

"You shouldn't have been out here," he told her, closing his eyes against all the pain and letting her guide him.

"Had to," she said breathlessly. "I couldn't let you have all the fun."

He snorted and then groaned, because the movement made his ribs protest angrily. It took decades to get home, forever to work their slow weary way through the hushed, funereal countryside back to the train tracks. "So what happened?" he asked as they slipped and stumbled through the rocks towards the cars containing the animals, where Stein would no doubt be waiting, standing at guard.

"I suppose I killed it," she said, very quietly. "It escaped, but I don't think there's anyway it could have survived. It must have bled to death. We can go look tomorrow and make certain, there will be a blood trail. There just has to be."

Soul whistled softly. "Attagirl, bearcat. That's really something." Exhaustion and pain were loosening his tongue, and if he weren't careful he would say something stupid, but feeling her pressed against him wasn't a thing he could walk away from. Physically, he was probably fine to walk alone now, if still off-balance, but she'd begun to wobble herself a ways back. So he stayed and helped her, knowing she probably wouldn't allow him to support her unless she thought it was mutual.

"Why do you call me that?" she said, a little hoarsely.

"Um," he said in slightly embarassed consternation. "Fits. Anyway, we're here." He jerked his chin in the direction of a shadowy shape walking towards them parallel to the train cars, which transformed into Stein's lean, looming shape as he stepped into the pool of flickering lantern-light. His hair, gone gray early in what Soul suspected was karmic retribution for all the innocent animals he'd dissected, was standing up in all directions; he'd been yanking on it, probably while chain-smoking. Stein did hate to be left behind, but somebody was needed to guard the livestock.

"Well, well, a little bird took flight," the doctor said softly, a notable undertone of menace in his voice. Maybe Soul was Lord Death's errand boy, but Stein was both morally unburdened and devoted to their Lord in way that meant there wasn't a thing in the universe he wouldn't do, no matter how objectionable, and indeed he had. He peered at Maka in a way that put a snarl on Soul's face before he could stop it.

"Her and Tsubaki first," Soul rumbled, not bothering to hide his dislike. There was no need. Stein would help them regardless of how grateful or polite they were; he had to, if he wanted to remain with the Dire Circus. It was an arrangement that suited Soul just fine. He didn't have to fake friendship. Part of him almost wanted to, because he had a sneaking suspicion Stein might relate to the thing wrong inside his head, but the man was just too slimy.

"Chivalrous," Stein said with chilly sarcasm, but he waved a hand and ushered them up into the train car beside them, which was nearly empty, holding only several tightly-bound crates, a stool, a battered old toolbox, and a white sheet with mysterious and unsavory-looking stains laid out in the center. "Closest thing you'll get to a proper hospital," he told no one in particular, sitting down on the stool and popping open the toolbox reverently.

Soul sighed, took his arm off Maka's shoulders with no little regret, and slid slowly down the ice-cold metal wall until he was safely on the floor, watching as Black Star settled Tsubaki down on the sheet, so delicately and softly that she might as well have been made of spun glass. He took her hand and murmured something, too low for anyone but her to hear, and she smiled up at him weakly, tattoos motionless and a little blurry at the edges. Such gentleness was unexpected from the whizzing ball of energy that was Black Star, but then Tsubaki brought out that side of him in a way no one else had ever done. Soul finally noticed the unnatural angle of her left ankle and felt nauseous. The madness loved blood above all else, but broken bones tended to make him feel a little ill, mad or not.

He felt the back of his head again, gingerly, prodding the congealing blood spiking his hair and pulling at the back of his neck as it dried, and wished he'd been able to sleep earlier, because with a head injury like this, Stein wouldn't allow him to sleep a wink. "Damn it all," he muttered. It was Maka's fault. She'd shook him up so with that lemonade stunt that sleep had been impossible. He looked up at her and blinked. She was clutching the door to the car so desperately that her knuckles were white, and her eyes were huge, rimmed all around in white, fixed on the darkest corner with ferocious intensity. Soul reached over and prodded the dusty, scuffed toe of her boot. She started and looked down at him.

"What?" she said shortly. He just raised an eyebrow at her. He knew that look well. He'd seen it in the mirror often enough. It was the look a person got when they were remembering how sharp edges felt when they passed through another living being, how blades tended to stick horribly in the bones, the sick wrench it took to free them, how the blood pumped out in crimson fireworks, how hot it was when it hit skin. "I'm fine," she said sharply. He'd never seen her look so very young.

"Sure," he sighed dourly, damning Lord Death and her father heartily for ever putting her in the path of the Dire Circus. She didn't deserve to be sullied the way she had tonight. Even though it wouldn't put her light out, it was wrong. "Wish I had some lemonade."

Her lips twitched, then she smiled, then she pressed her hands over her mouth to stop her giggles as she settled down next to him. "Me too," she said finally. "Lemonade is a happy drink. It's cheerful."

"A drink can't be cheerful," he said, in the most contrary way he could muster. "It can make you cheerful."

"Drunkard," she said, smiling at him to show that she was joking.

He smiled back, entirely caught up in the way her grin created a tiny fan of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Now that was purely cheerful right there, undiluted happiness. She was so close to him, yet again, so wonderfully unafraid, and he could see every tiny freckle sugaring her skin. The wrinkles disappeared as she gaped at him and he clapped a hand to his mouth, ignoring the new pain the sudden movement brought. He never smiled with open lips, ever, but he had. The nausea came back full force.

"No- don't," she said furiously, wrapping her bloody hands around his wrist and tugging. "I thought you were dead so you had best stop this silliness. Being afraid to smile, of all things! I don't mind your teeth!" Black Star glanced over his shoulder at them interestedly, brows shooting up, but he was too intent on Tsubaki to say anything, thank god. Soul knew he'd have to answer to Black Star at some point, though, to answer a few questions about just what exactly he thought he was doing with the poor little amnesiac that Black Star had taken a shine to. The mere fact that he'd allowed her to touch him would be a clear enough signal to the blue-haired boy; the fact that he'd been caught smiling at her was even worse.

He shook her hand off his wrist roughly. "Stop it," he said, nearly shouting. How could she expect him to smile like she did, like sunshine and springtime? It wasn't in him. His teeth had never been anything but intimidating, a warning, a barrier and a weapon. They weren't made for mirth and it had been too long to change that. He couldn't turn himself inside out for her so easily. She wanted so much, and he wanted to give it to her, but he simply couldn't. He couldn't do it. He was who he was, and that wasn't a very good man; it was a damn miracle she hadn't decided to just admit that fact already and give up this attempt to be his friend. "People aren't all like you!" he added angrily, aware that he sounded childish but entirely unable to come up with anything more eloquent, and then he pulled himself upright, snatched a roll of gauze from the sheet, and did the best imitation of furious stomping he could manage in his current shaky condition as he headed back to his own trailer, alone in the night. The stars twinkled down at him gaily, and the contrast between the sparkling heavens and his own earthly hell made him want to light something on fire.

He wasn't alone for long. Not five minutes after he shut the door to his wagon, there she was, hammering on it like a madwoman. No one but her would have the guts to assault his door like that. He threw it open and nearly smacked her in the face with it as she pulled back her fist for another go. She glared at him so potently that he would have sworn the breath just rushed right out of his lungs in the face of her ire. "Idiot!" she shrieked.

"Keep your voice down," he said coldly. "People are sleeping."

"People who are alive because you went to go kill that- that thing! Which you still need to explain! But Soul, you're a hero," she snapped, yanking on both her disheveled pigtails and looking absolutely maddened. How could she still have the energy for a fight?

He slumped back a little, aching violently, woozy, wishing he could just slam the door in her face, but it would never work. He'd have to beat her senseless to get her to desist. "I'm the farthest thing from a hero you'll ever meet, and the sooner you figure that out the sooner this nonsense can all be over," he grunted, rubbing his forehead and leaning against his doorframe, because if he didn't have some kind of support he was definitely going to fall over. She didn't yell at him anymore, though. He followed her gaze to the bandages dangling from his fingers and groaned. "Oh, no, don't even think about it, you damn crazy-"

She stepped up and pushed him neatly inside his wagon without even bothering to pretend she was listening to his protests, taking the bandages as she shut the door behind them. He felt too terrible to do much more than snarl wordlessly at her as she knelt down and dipped a rag- he recognized it as one of Stein's- in his washbucket. She'd brought a bottle of disinfectant too, and another roll of bandaging. The girl didn't forget a thing, even enraged. "Come here," she said impatiently, giving him a really enthusiastic evil eye.

He crossed his arms, trying to ignore the way his stomach was somersaulting. "No."

"You can't see the back of your head."

"Says you," he growled.

"That doesn't make any sense at all," she said placidly. "And I know you don't like Stein, do you? Well, it's him or me that does this."

"Black Star can do it," he protested.

She guffawed. "He'd kill you. He's busy with Tsubaki anyhow."

Soul matched her glare. "No. Scram."

"I am so tired of you being rude to me," she said under her breath. "As soon as you're healthy I'm going to teach you a lesson."

"Is that so?" he growled, breath hitching as his ribs protested such vehement arguing.

"Yes it is!" she said loudly. "I'm- I'm challenging you!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!" They both exhaled at the same time, though he did it with a lot more pain. "Now," she continued, in a slightly less raging manner, "Come here." She patted the floor in front of her.

"Not moving," he said obnoxiously.

"You're a baby when you're hurt," she observed coolly. "If I clean you up on your bed, it's going to get all wet and bloody."

"Damn it," he cursed quietly. She was right. She had a sneaky way of forcing him into doing what she wanted with logic, it seemed, trapping him with common sense. "Fine." He put as much sourness into the syllable as he could.

"Fine," she shot back again. It took him a minute to figure out how to get onto the floor without passing out. He was so off-balance that when he did finally get his rump on the floor, he nearly toppled sideways. She settled behind him and started in on the blood caked on his neck first, scrubbing it away with little mercy.

"Go easy, I'm injured," he complained as a particularly firm scrub pulled at the wound on his head.

"So am I, idiot, from saving your stupid mean life," she spat venomously. That shut him up quite effectively. He pondered mournfully how exactly his life had gotten this confusing as she worked her way up into his hair. She was gentler now, as she cleaned the wound itself, and he was leaning back against her knees before he really knew what he was doing. She hadn't run yet, and he was starting to think that she didn't even know how to. She was so warm, it seemed she ran hot, which was fitting, and his trailer was basically an icebox now, so late at night. It was nice, and even though he was in more pain than he had felt in a while, her touch was relaxing. He was startled at that thought. Touch was anathema to him. It was nearly always a precursor to hurt, but not with her. Well, sometimes, but somehow he didn't mind all that much even when she abused him. Her hands were so small. What had she done, before coming to the circus? She would have been a good painter, he thought. She had that ability to throw her entire self into whatever she was doing, to absorb into the minute details that would drive him even more insane than he was already. She would paint pretty things, landscapes in full flower, or waterfalls. Peaceful places, like she was, with carnivorous plants hiding in the shadows...

"Soul. Soul. You can't go to sleep," she said softly. He twitched back from the warm gray seduction of sleep, blinking his heavy lids firmly.

"I'm awake."

"It's fine," she said absently. Then, after a moment,"This isn't as bad as I thought it would be. You bled so much. I really do think you should have Stein put a stitch or two in you, though."

"No," he said, getting awfully near to a whine. "It'll be fine."

"It's your scalp, not mine," she said with a sigh. "Rubbing alcohol."

"What- shit! Christ!"

"It stings, doesn't it?" she said distantly.

"Yes it stings!" he barked.

"I thought it might. It's one of those things I've only halfway forgotten. Like rainbows. I remember that they happen during rain and sunshine but I can't quite remember how they're shaped."

"An arch," he supplied. Her hidden satchel mocked him cruelly from underneath his bed.

"Oh. Really? That's- hmm. Not what I expected. Well, maybe I'll see one soon." She dabbed one more time at his wound, holding his head still with one hand on the side of his face, and he hoped she couldn't feel how hot his cheeks were getting. This was an awful lot of attention, a lot of- well, it couldn't be care, because people didn't care for him- but it was intense and he was as uncomfortable as an ant under a magnifying glass. It was solid and potent deja vu from the first time she'd cleaned blood from his hair, except it felt both heavier and lighter this time around. He couldn't figure out why. Maybe it was the image he held in his mind of her standing over him, guarding him, shearing a monster's limb away to keep him alive. She'd been splendid, demonic, the devil's daughter come up to guard him, and yet now she was as gentle as anything had ever been. He tried not to consider the idea that he might have died if she hadn't showed up, if Black Star had been too distracted to come to his aid. He'd considered his own death often enough as his spirit was eaten away by black fire, but coming face to face with it was unsettling to say the least.

"I don't think I'd be letting you do this any other time," he said. It felt like he had to say something, to fill the air with a thing other than his overactive imagination.

"I know," came her amused voice. "You're a regular tough guy, right? Real hard-boiled. Anyhow. Stein said you'll just have to take it easy, on the ribs, for a few days."

"How'd you know I hurt my ribs?" he said.

Her voice came from behind him, from an invisible source, like a divine visitation. Maybe she was really his long-lost conscience, sent from heaven in a godly prank. "Was I wrong? It seemed fairly obvious, you can hardly breathe," she said.

"No, you're right," he answered tiredly, leaning forward, with tender care for aforementioned injured ribs, to prop his chin in his hands. His eyelids were like lead weights; it was all he could do to stay conscious. "I can't believe you took that thing on all by yourself," he added sleepily. It seemed he was quite a loose-lipped chatterbox when pretty girls decided to play nurse, but he could write that particular weakness off as simply a symptom of his gender. Then he remembered, and craned around to peer at her. "Your shoulder."

She smiled sideways. "Um, it's okay, I can take care of it."

He went through the laborious process of turning around to fully face her without sending his ribs into a fit of agony. "Sure?"

"Mmhmm," she said, nodding. He caught the redness creeping up her cheeks and scoffed as much as he could with inadequate air in his lungs.

"I'm not trying to start any heavy petting," he told her dryly. "I've got better lines than offering to clean up a dame's bloody war wounds, and I'd rather I see your shoulder than that scumbag Stein, you'll come away from him with nightmares for days." His own softness took him aback. Was this truly him, was this Soul the murderer, the albino madman, the abandoned sideshow killer, talking so calmly and normally with a diminutive blonde, just as if he hadn't wanted to shred her the first time they met?

She gave him a funny look through her downcast lashes and gnawed on her lip for a while before nodding, just slightly. "I suppose." She said it sternly and tried valiantly to look dignified, as if that would somehow ward off any inappropriate advances he might make. He wrung out the towel she'd used to wipe his blood away, poured a splash of the rubbing alcohol on it, and waited. She didn't move a muscle. A statue was no more motionless.

"Anyone home?" he said, snapping his fingers in front of her face. She shot him an impressively mean look, but he didn't miss her quick, nervous swallow and the widening of her eyes. "Look," he said finally, unsure of how to soothe someone else, but deciding that he needed to try his damnedest after all this strange bookish girl had done for him tonight, "I didn't mean anything- it's just, you're hurt and you helped me, and- augh, lord, all right. I am failing at this. Uh. Everything will be all right?"

Her lower lip started to tremble and he watched in abject terror as her eyes grew watery, diamond tears polluting the emerald. "It's not-" she choked passionately out before burying her face in her knees.

"Oh, god," he said to the ceiling. "This is not happening. Please quit that. I already feel like I'm going to upchuck, seeing you upset isn't helping. Please?" He reached out to pat her or something, stopped halfway, and gave up. This wasn't anything he knew how to do.

"Sorry," she said in a sniffling way.

She was so pathetic and sad that he did reach out and put a hand on her head then. He couldn't help himself. "No, I promise, it will all be okay. You did good."

She breathed out shakily and raised one hand to clasp his forearm where it rested near her face. "It was awful," she said, still sounding teary.

He jumped on that. This was something he could help with. "I know, it's a nasty job, and it's bloody and foul, but you did it and-"

"Not that," she interjected, face still hidden. He ran a thumb tremulously over the curve of her skull, the silken fall of one pigtail, muted gold in the soft light. "It was you."

"Me?" he asked, entirely perplexed.

"I thought you and Tsubaki were dead. I told you, you just kept bleeding and bleeding like- well, I can't remember any good metaphors fpr things but it was a lot!"

"You were worried about me?" he said in astonishment. His stomach, already complaining with every move he made, was suddenly full of fluttering wings.

She lifted her head to glower at him. "Yes, you big mean dummy! Of course I was!"

He moved his hand down to cup the side of her face, bringing the other up to match, aware that they were trembling. His hands never shook. He'd killed with these hands, had brought crowds of a hundred people to a roaring, frenzied crescendo of applause night after night, but when he touched her like this, they shook. She blinked almost dizzily, watching him as if he was something she'd never seen before, and maybe he was. They were both falling further off the borders of the map with every moment they spent together. He held her face gently, like the precious thing it was, and searched her face carefully, holding her still until he was satisfied. "You were worried about me," he repeated, this time in sheer wonderment, reading the truth of it in her slightly bewildered face.

"I was," she said, a tiny crack in her voice as her eyes flickered sideways to his hands. "Is that so unusual for you, for a friend to worry?"

"I don't have friends."

"You have Black Star and Tsubaki."

"It's not the same."

"That doesn't mean they weren't worried about you," she protested.

He let his hands fall, but kept his gaze on her face. "I suppose," he said, because he wasn't sure how to respond. It was his own fault he wasn't closer with Black Star and Tsubaki, or anyone else. He slapped them away anytime they got within arm's reach of his vulnerable heart. "Got a deal for you. I'll turn away, let you take care of your shoulder."

"How is that a deal?" she said suspiciously.

Very deliberately, with full awareness, he smiled at her, toothily, every pointed edge in his mouth exposed. It was not unlike stripping naked; in fact, he would almost have preferred the latter, given how awkwardly terrified smiling so baldly made him feel. Her face lit up, blazed at him like a bonfire, and satisfaction smothered his fear. "I'm going to read to you," he told her. The fire leaped higher. She pressed her fingertips to her lips, a gesture so evocative of her longing that his own heart stung for her in sympathy. Offering her words was not unlike saving her life.

"You are?" she hushed around her fingers, cheeks flushed, eyes very bright.

"I am indeed." He crawled, a tad dizzily, over to the bed and slithered up onto it, fishing her copy of _Jane Eyre_ out of his sheets, the copy she had no idea had been hers a lifetime ago, before she knew about monsters and the smell of blood. After he arranged himself in a position where most of his injured bits were reasonably comfortable, or at least not being outright aggravated, he flipped to the first page. She was crosslegged on the floor, watching him with starry eyes and that delicate hand still on her mouth. "You gonna get to work cleaning yourself up? Thought we had a deal," he said wryly.

"But- book," she cried unhappily, but then she puffed out an irritated breath and wriggled around, presenting him with her back. "Don't peek, " she added over her shoulder.

"Won't. Is it going to need stitches like Black Star said?"

"Hmm- ouch. Ah, I don't think so," she said. Her voice was strained as she fiddled with her blouse. It was undoubtedly crusted to the wound by now, but he heard a drop of water hit the floor and knew she was using the damp cloth to loosen the blood.

He watched sideways from under lowered lashes as part of her shirt fell away, slipping down to her elbow, one smooth rounded shoulder glowing warmly peach in the lamp light, gleaming like the promised land, and then he bit his lip and dragged his eyes away, clawing the sheets with one hand. His other hand, more obedient, held her book steady, and his voice held only a shade of unusual depth as he began. "There was no possibility of taking a walk that day," he started, and she sighed with such fervent, genuine ecstasy that his pulse thrummed in tight harmony. "We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery," he went on, reading with only half a mind, fighting the growl in his voice, fighting the part of him that was listening with keen attention to the little sounds of her, the shift of fabric and the hiss of her breath. He kept going like a runaway train, anchoring himself to the words, and after a while he was far enough in them to barely notice when she swiveled back to face him, shirt returned to its proper place. The water in the bucket was a deeper pink this time around, mingling traces of both their blood together, and as the lamplight grew lower so did her eyelids. By the time little Jane Eyre had met her ghost, Maka was curled asleep on the floor, one hand flung out towards him in a gesture that did something funny and aching to his insides. He let the words trail off and stood up, though it made the entire trailer spin, and for a moment he was afraid he'd have to dash past her to empty his stomach. The world settled, though, and he'd draped a blanket over her shoulders and slipped out the door in a moment. He aimed his steps straight at Lord Death's black windowless trailer, at the furthest end of the line of cars. They had some talking to do.

* * *

The pale early morning was still cold, though the sky was cloudless, and her warmer borrowed clothes were still in Tsubaki's wagon, so she kept his blanket around her shoulders as she searched for him, hoping he wouldn't mind. He was nowhere to be found, not in the mess tent or the horrible makeshift hospital car where Stein had treated them last night, not anywhere. Eventually she gave up and wandered home to Tsubaki's, holding the blanket tight even as her shoulder prickled caution at the pressure. It was old and well worn, but warm, and it smelled like his trailer did, lonely and metallic. She resolved absently to bring him hot food at some point and fill it with good smells. She'd have to ask Tsubaki for some foods that smelled good, though. She couldn't really remember any, except the fresh smell of lemonade, and she didn't really think he'd appreciate that.

Black Star opened the roundish door to her knock, looking none the worse for wear, though his hair was somewhat flatter than was usual. "Bearcat," he said in greeting, giving an irreverent salute, greenish gaze flicking keenly to her shoulder. "How are you?"

"I'm on the mend, I suppose," she said, a little uncomfortably. That sharp gaze hadn't missed the blanket she was wearing either. For a buffoon, he was remarkably observant.

"Soul help you with that?" he said, leering at her. She fisted one hand warningly, narrowed her eyes, and he stepped back, lifting his arms in mock surrender. "Easy! It's too early for you to knock me out. Although, if I'm unconscious I can get out of chores..." His face took on an entirely evil gleam as he rubbed his hands together.

"If you wanted to be injured you had plenty of opportunity to do so last night while Soul was getting his head smashed in," she said, razor sharp, and then proceeded to lift her nose in the air and slide past him inside as he gaped at her. She put her blanketed back to him very firmly as she rummaged in the bag she'd been stashing her meagre collection of personal items in for fresh clothes, and eventually he slunk away, muttering things about bearcats and uppity and damn it all.

"You're protective of him," came Tsubaki's gentle tones, the gravel of sleep still in them. Maka turned her head to smile at her friend where she lay prone in her bed, a small smiling face among the lavishly excessive pillows. They were brightly colored, rich violets and cobalt silks interspersed with forest-green paisley, which only emphasized how still and white she was. Black Star had tucked Tsubaki in up to her nose under the quilt. Only her foot was sticking out, the fresh white plaster of the cast on it looking empty and bare. Maka resolved to draw a decoration of some sort on it at the soonest opportunity. Maybe a butterfly. Would whatever sorcery Tsubaki used to animate her tattoos extend to the cast?

"I am no such thing. That's your job," Maka said with a small laugh, trying to straighten out the millions of questions in her brain into some sort of order, so she could get to proper asking. Getting her shirt off was proving to be tricky, though, and required some thinking. It had been easy enough to slide one side of it off her shoulder last night, especially given the soporific anesthesia of Soul's narration, but right now trying to peel the thing over her head was positively agonizing. She tried not to look at the bandage on her shoulder, or to think of the four parallel slashes running from the end of her collarbone to the outer curve of her bicep. They were ugly things, made by an ugly thing, and suddenly she wanted her scythe very much. She'd have to collect it from the forest before the circus left; there'd been no way to carry it home, not with a severely concussed Soul draped over her like a wet blanket.

"Not Black Star," Tsubaki said, eyes crinkling in a way that told Maka she was smiling, though her mouth was hidden under the blankets. "Soul."

Maka felt heat rising up her cheeks and looked away, taken aback by her body's reaction to such an inane and unfounded accusation. Then she remembered and said, a little snippily, "We're friends now. Friends take care of each other."

"Of course," Tsubaki murmured, closing her eyes for a moment. "How is he?"

"I don't know, I can't find him. It's good he didn't sleep, though," Maka grumbled, finally getting her ruined shirt off her head and beginning to wriggle out of her trousers, toeing her boots off deftly at the same time.

"Oh, Maka, your poor shoulder!" Tsubaki said as Maka stripped, sounding positively aghast.

Maka paused and looked down at the sloppily wrapped bandage. She thought about the hitching screams of the charred, winged woman-thing as it stumbled away, about the moment when she'd been sure Soul was dead, as she'd cradled him, then slapped him across the face with a hand slick from his own blood. "Tsubaki, what was that thing?" She turned to her friend as she spoke, trying to hide how desperately afraid she was at the mere memory. Her body had moved almost of its own accord last night, as if it was somehow used to fighting, but her brain had been nothing but buzzing, roaring, animalistic terror.

Tsubaki shifted a little, sitting halfway up and pushing the coverlet down around her waist. She was rather pale, which made the misty deep blue of her eyes look darker than normal, more piercing. The tiger tattoo had clambered to his favored spot on her shoulder and was sitting prettily with his striped tail wrapped around his forepaws, almost like a housecat. Only the occasional restless twitch of that tail gave away his true nature. "That was a person who had been overtaken by evil. Black Star's gone to check that it's dead, but I think you were successful," Tsubaki said slowly. Her accent grew a little stronger as she spoke, and she twisted her sheets between pearly nails, clearly nervous. "I suppose there's no point lying to you, anymore, is there? Whatever Lord Death may say. The cat's out of the bag now. I am sorry, Maka, I didn't wish to deceive you, but what we do is dangerous. I didn't want you to be hurt, and I didn't think you'd believe." The tiger on her shoulder gave a cavernous yawn, displaying his fangs as if to warn off any such vagabond cats that might come sniffing around his mistress.

Maka sat down heavily on one of the plump cushions that lay scattered across the small floor, rummaging in her bag more for something to do than out of any real need. "How can I not believe, when your tattoos can look back at me?" she said with a small, mirthless laugh. "I don't remember much but I do remember that things like that don't exist. They don' just don't. How can things like what I saw last night roam the world, and yet no one knows? It should be all over the papers, at least, it should be-"

"People do know. Do you remember fairy tales, or legends? Werewolves, vampires, ghouls, the dead walking?" Tsubaki said carefully, keeping her eyes downcast. Her hair was loose, a black shroud around her white face, and she looked haunted in more ways than one just then.

"Yes," Maka said immediately. "I remember them well. The stories. But Tsubaki, the things I remember best are the things that aren't real!"

"They're real. Things like the one you killed get mistaken for more common legends by those who see them. Evil is a physical thing, it's a condition the same as the plague or polio, I think. It affects the body. Those who embrace it become it, eventually, sometimes. We don't know why only some bad people do, or how exactly, but it happens. We fight it." Tsubaki said it all very quickly, one long rush of impossible things, and then looked up waveringly, beautiful eyes pleading. "Maka, are you going to leave now? I'm afraid for you. And I'll miss you if you go."

The final, shyly spoken words went straight to Maka's slightly shredded heart. "I won't," she said, finally remembering that she was nearly nude and pulling on her fresh clothes as well as she could one-armed. "I won't. I'm building ties here, I suppose, whether I wanted to at the start or not." She thought of Soul's scarlet gaze just then, for some reason, the way his whole face changed when he truly smiled. "But Tsubaki, if I hadn't seen that thing myself, I would think you'd gone raving mad." She didn't add that even now, she was halfway wondering if it was all some sick prank they were playing on her, taking advantage of her amnesia. But then, all she had to do was think of the sick cackle of the thing she'd cut down and she knew it was no prank. It had all been far too real. The tiger regarded her slyly from one lambent orange eye.

"Speaking of madness," Tsubaki said slowly to the ceiling, hands still working at the blanket on her lap, "How has Soul been treating you? He hasn't hurt you at all?"

"Of course not!" Maka said firmly, maneuvering one arm through a clean blouse. It was one of Blair's, and the woman liked her things tight enough that it would be only a little loose on Maka's much smaller frame. "Fine. Well, he's a bit of an- a rude arrogant boy, he can be mean, but I don't think he means it. He's like a stray dog. He growls but he's only afraid. Anyway, why do you ask?" Maka was trapped inside her half-on shirt when Tsubaki answered, and she was grateful she couldn't see her friend's face, because Tsubaki's next words put solid unforgiving ice in Maka's veins.

"No reason. I'm glad he's getting on so well with you. Anyway, do you think you're ready to perform tonight?"

* * *

FOOTNOTES

1: 'Attagirl' meant the same then as it does today, basically 'good job'.

2: 'Hardboiled' means tough, stoic or strong.

3: 'Scram' meant, again, the same thing then as it does now- leave!

4: A 'heavy petting session' would be making out. ;)

5: A 'dame' is a female, usually a rather attractive one.

6: 'Upchuck' was often used when someone vomited due to drinking too much, but could also be for vomiting from other reasons.

7: Rubbing alcohol is basically peroxide. It's disinfectant, and was indeed in use medically in the '20s.

* * *

**Author says**: Here we go! Hope you all like it. Bit of a cliffy, sorry. Anyway, if Maka's 'battle skills' seem too outrageous, remember that her mother taught her to box and the like from a young age, and she's rough-and-tumble naturally. She's not the typical girl of her time, at all, and she was armed whereas the beastie wasn't. She got lucky, essentially, because her scythe was nice and sharp!

Reallyreally hope it's not too unrealistic. I tried to make her attitude about it all seem reasonable- let me know what you think. Thanks again for all the wonderful reviews and favorites/follows! I appreciate it so much! :)

Oh, and I don't own in any way the book _Jane Eyre_, though I do love it.


	7. Chapter 7

**Enkindle** [en-_kin_-dl], _verb_. 1: To set on fire; kindle. 2: To excite to activity or ardour; arouse.

* * *

Sweating in the growing heat, Soul was digging as fast as he could, which admittedly wasn't very fast at all, though he'd made reasonable progress, when Black Star ambled up, thumbs stuck in his suspenders and a rather abashed look on his face. "Help?" Soul grunted at him, panting.

"Sure thing. Here, move your slow ass." Black Star snatched the shovel and proceeded to send dirt flying in every possible direction, attacking the earth like a force of nature. Soul stumbled over to a convenient rock and sat down with a sigh, wiping his brow and watching the dappled patterns of sunshine through the leaves, rippling peacefully across the ground, eternally unconcerned with anything at all. "Listen," Black Star said suddenly, still digging, "I should have been watching your back last night. I wasn't thinking straight, with Tsu and all. It won't happen again. I'm sorry."

Soul squinted at him, one hand gingerly to his throbbing head and one on his white-hot ribs, taken aback. Black Star almost never apologized. "Oh," he said after a moment. "Maka got to you, didn't she?"

"Made me feel like a right ass. She's good at that," Black Star admitted rather plaintively, flinging a massive shovelful of dirt over his shoulder and only just missing Soul.

"Mm," Soul answered noncommitally. He knew exactly what kind of sneaky, nosy, prying conversation was coming and he wasn't looking forward to it, to say the least. He wanted sleep so bad he could taste it. Insomnia was nothing new to him, but it had been a hectic day yesterday, and he was bone weary.

"Sooooo, about the bearcat, anyway. You two are getting pretty comfortable, for you, anyhow," Black Star puffed, taking a split second away from his assault on the ground to lift his brows rakishly at Soul.

Soul gave him a half-hearted snarl, unable to muster up anything stronger. "She wants to be friends," he replied morosely.

"You act like that's a tragedy or something!" Another load of dirt shot by, perilously close. The hole was getting deeper and deeper at a fantastic pace. "She's got legs up to her armpits, don't tell me you haven't noticed. She doesn't mind getting her hands dirty neither. Wouldn't think you'd mind being friendly with a dame like that."

"Wouldn't think it was any of your business," Soul shot back acidly, pushing himself upright and waiting out the inevitable spinning of the world around him. "Come on, let's get this bitch buried."

"All right, all right," Black Star said, hopping up out of the pit. "Upside down again?"

Soul bent over and grabbed the ankles of the dead thing steaming in the sunshine, grimacing as tiny bits of charred skin flaked off. The smell was atrocious. He didn't think he'd be eating meat for at least a week. "Always," the madness answered for him, boiling over for a heartbeat. "Always."

"Are you ever going to explain to me why exactly we do this? It's not right to keep secrets from someone you look up to so much!"

"You just don't get the concept of things not being your business, do you?" Soul huffed as angrily as he could. Black Star rolled his eyes, looking disgusted, took the other end of the thing, and together they counted to three and toppled her into the fresh grave, facedown, Soul only just dodging one of her limp batlike wings as she fell. It was better than the corrupted thing deserved, but a corpse looking like that couldn't be left lying about. Evil things, already half-rotted from the inside out, decayed quickly, which was why the grave didn't need to be but a few feet deep. Nonetheless, this was farmland, and not far from several towns. It wouldn't do for some poor country bumpkin to run across the body and get scared out of his skull. Lord Death didn't like loose ends. Soul tried not to think of his boss. He was too purely angry at him right now, after the hellish discussion they'd had that morning. After a small shouting match and one broken plate it had culminated in Lord Death telling him, quite angrily and at a really incredible volume, that Maka's amnesia was for her own good and the good of her father, and if Soul interfered he would be facing severe consequences. What he had left out was whether or not Spirit was even still alive, and it had been that omission that let Soul calm himself. He wanted, furiously, to know what was happening in Paris to Maka's parents. It wasn't right that another person be left orphaned. It was too hard; she deserved better.

Black Star picked up the shovel again, but Soul held up a hand. "Just a moment," he said, and wobbled achingly over to the disembodied black arm, the one Maka had sliced off. It hadn't been hard to find; the tracks they'd made last night had been obvious enough that a blind man could follow them to the scene of the fight. The creature itself had been easy enough to track as well, the blood trail thick and clear, spattered among the undergrowth like street signs. The monster hadn't gotten very far before bleeding out and dying. He thought of Maka again as he picked up the arm and tossed it into the grave, thought pensively of her still, angelic face held in his shaking hands.

"That's foul," Black Star observed idly, slamming the blade of the shovel deep into the pile of earth they'd build up around the grave and scraping it into the hole.

Soul didn't say anything, though he heartily agreed. He just watched, swaying, until the body was covered and then started trudging back to the circus, Maka's scythe making a convenient walking stick. "Thanks," he called back grudgingly to Black Star, who merely waved a hand in answer.

He tried to breathe in the gentle neutrality of the trees as he went, to drink in the springtime peace. Everything was blooming, sprouting, green and fresh, new beginnings as far as the eye could see. He almost missed Maka's approach, he was so absorbed in the complex melodies of birdsong, but her yelp of joy brought him back. "Eh?" was all he had time to say as she launched herself at him.

"My scythe! My scythe!" she squeaked joyously, one arm around his neck and the other hand latched onto her weapon. "Thank you!"

"Welcome," he muttered, ears afire. At least she'd avoided smacking into his ribs. She detached herself and her scythe and did a ridiculous little twirl, green eyes crinkled happily. Such open, demonstrative affection over a scythe, from a girl with such a confused relationship to physical contact; she must really be enamored with the thing.

"I was just off to find this, I was scared I'd get lost," she confided, grinning hugely.

He nodded, wildly out of sorts, scrubbing a hand through his hair in an automatic gesture of embarassment and then nearly shrieking as he brushed his wound. "We were just burying the dead thing," he said.

She sobered a little. "Oh," she said consideringly. "Um- what exactly did it do that was so bad?"

"Didn't you see it? It was uglier than homemade sin," he said scathingly, examining his head wound more carefully with his fingertips. It seemed to be scabbing nicely.

She blinked at him, then swallowed, looking away and drawing a circle on the ground with the toe of one boot. "I only want to be certain that it deserved to die."

He opened his mouth to answer, then paused. Even a thing as hideously malformed as what she'd killed- she didn't judge it on its outward horrors. She wanted the truth of whatever was inside. He was taken aback by how very much he wanted her arms back around him just then. "It did," he told her firmly. "People don't turn into things like that unless they've done truly awful things."

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Yes."

"All right, then," she said thoughtfully. "Oh. I have a favor to ask you."

"Lord. What?" He started walking as they spoke. The sunlight was warm and cleanly beautiful, but it was giving him an even worse headache.

She watched him in a sideways fashion, falling into step beside him and looking rather worried. "Are you feeling all right?"

"Been better but I'm not dying. What do you want?"

"Well, only if you're up to it-"

"Get on with it!"

"Fine! Tsubaki- she wants- I guess we're opening for a few days here, for some town a bit north, and she wants me to take her spot in the big top lineup," she said despairingly.

He wheezed out a painful half-laugh, half-snort. "Is that so? A month here and you're all ready to jump in the ring, is that it?"

"I rode before," she said snippily, giving him a thunderous glare. "I think. I mean, I must have, I suppose, and Aka's taken right to it. We have been practicing, you know, almost every day!"

"Really?" He hadn't realized. "Well, that's just smashing, but how does that relate to me?"

"I was hoping you could help me practice," she said, a little shyly. "The big top's almost up, and I want to work through it with the music."

Maka, the blazing bearcat, moving to his music- no. He'd die, or she would. The madness screamed and screamed and he shifted away from her a little, glad deep down that she was armed at the moment. "I can't. I need sleep if I'm going to play tonight," he said brusquely. It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth. How would he survive the show tonight? He'd have to play with his eyes closed when it was her turn. It would be too much. His lifeline to sanity would snap with the weight of his longing. He wondered if she remembered how to dance.

She drooped. "Oh. All right, then."

"You'll do fine," he lied, wishing fervently that he was normal, wishing he could help her. She probably wouldn't, and he didn't know what in the hell Tsubaki was thinking, throwing her into the ring after so little practice. Performers worked every day for years to perfect their arts, to stay alive while defying death, and she would be among pounding steel-clad hooves and atop a thousand pound beast with a brain of its own. He'd never trusted horses; he was definitely a dog person. Anything could go wrong. This was a very, very bad idea, regardless of whether or not she'd been able to sit a horse before. Was this the feeling of being worried for another person? He reached out blindly and put a hand on her unwounded shoulder, giving a little squeeze. She sent him a smile that rivaled the sun, and the madness retreated under its light, a small miracle.

"Thank you," she told him, eyes as brightly green as the infant leaves unfurling all around her. "Do you really think so? I'm so nervous. I want to do well. I feel like I didn't train enough, I don't know, I wish I'd practiced more-"

He lifted a brow at her, lips quirking sideways. "I think perhaps you were a teacher's pet in a past life," he said lightly.

Something flickered across her face, a flash of vengeful fury, but then she smiled again. "Maybe. Maybe I'm just always prepared," she said airily. Her innocent tone aside, he hadn't missed her emerald fire, and he wondered again just how much of their burgeoning backwards friendship was due to her secret campaign to regain her past.

"Of course," he said, a little darkly. Just then a bluish tornado whirled up beside them, settling into Black Star, who was dirty from head to toe, holding the shovel like a trophy over his head.

"Bitch is dead and buried and may she roast in hell forever!" he crowed, and then looked at Maka. "Oh, hello, bearcat. Pardon my French."

She looked confused. "French?"

"Cursing?" Black Star said slowly.

She shook her head, shrugging, lips pressed together. "It's a country. Overseas," Soul put in wearily, not adding that it was probably where her parents were, right now, fighting and maybe dying for all he knew. Every time things like this happened, the tiny stutters in conversations when she didn't remember something everyone around her knew, a thing like shame passed over her like a dark cloud. He hated it.

Black Star made a face and put it out of his mind, thunking the end of the shovel into the ground in time with every step he took. "So Maka," he said slyly, "Soul here always insists we bury those kinds of beasties, the really foul ones, facedown. You know why?"

Soul put a hand to his throbbing forehead in despair when she turned to him, with that secret-hunting curious hunger he was starting to fear. Black Star was using her insane lust for knowledge to find out what he wanted to know; what a shifty cunning bastard. "No! That's so strange! Why?" she said enthusiastically.

"No," he said futilely, and then, "I hate you so goddamn much," in Black Star's direction. The blue-haired boy just smirked at him evilly.

"What do you mean, no?" she protested, sticking a finger sharply into his shoulder. Black Star chuckled at that and Soul growled at him. This was quickly devolving into a situation in which Black Star would get the wrong idea about Soul's and Maka's relationship, which he would tell Tsubaki about, and then Soul would be forced to endure endless lectures from the both of them as they attempted to 'protect' the poor helpless amnesiac from the violent pianist and his rages. Soul hadn't missed the fact that, instead of running off ahead, Black Star was currently staying right beside them rather than leaving them alone together. As if she needed protection! She could probably knock Soul clean out if she really wanted; he hadn't forgotten the right hook she'd landed to his jaw when they first met, nor the challenge she'd issued with such blazing temper last night. "Tell me," she begged, skipping around in front of him and walking backwards to better plead, wringing her hands together. "Please?"

"I hate everything," he said to the uncaring branches arching above him. "Hate you all. Particularly you, Black Star."

"What did I do?" Black Star said, blinking in exaggerated innocence.

"Please," Maka whined.

"If it will shut you up," Soul bellowed. "Then fine! It's just a thing I heard a long time ago. It's nonsense."

"Pleaaaaaase," Maka said again, still walking backwards and miraculously not tripping on anything.

"It's an old story," he said ill-temperedly, still holding his ribs, walking faster and trying to ignore Black Star's obnoxiously satisfied face. "That whole biblical tale about the end of the world. Once everything ends the dead are supposed to start walking again and go after the living that are left. So the truly evil get buried facedown, so when they try and dig out, all they can do is go deeper. They used to bury witches that way."

Maka went very quiet, staring off yonder with a contemplative expression. Black Star whistled. "That's morbid," he said, eyeing Soul sharply. "How have you been feeling, anyway?"

Soul knew exactly what he meant, and debated for a moment, but then decided to tell him the truth, shooting a glance at Maka's faraway face before he could stop himself. "Bit better," he said shortly.

Black Star hummed thoughtfully, copying his quick look at Maka, who was now had her head tipped back and was frowning straight up at the clouds as she walked, still doing that uncanny thing where she didn't trip or take a single misstep. Her boots swished through the forest litter just as surely and strongly as the boys', but her hips swayed in an unmistakably female way, and Soul got lost for a spell before shaking himself back to reality. "That's good to hear," Black Star said, seriously, rubbing his upper sleeve, under which his lone tattoo was usually kept hidden from those who might recognize its symbolism, even this far from his homeland. Tsubaki had cried soft tears the entire time she'd inked it into his skin on his fourteenth birthday, but he'd insisted; he had said he didn't ever want to forget the things his bloodline had done. He and Soul shared their lack of family, though at least Soul's was likely still alive somewhere. Which scenario was better, Soul couldn't rightly say.

They both fell into their respective memories for a while, lulled by the whispers of the trees. Whatever Black Star was thinking about, it wasn't pleasant, judging by the glint in his eyes. At least he'd stopped getting raging headaches whenever Maka appeared. Soul was similarly wrapped up in morose contemplation. A month ago, before his tiny bearcat appeared, he would have thought that three more years of life was being optimistic, would have thought that Lord Death would be putting him at rest soon. Now, though, he dared to think that just maybe he might be able to squeeze a few more years out of his rotting brain before he lost all humanity. It was wonderful and terrifying, fresh hope blooming where the old had died long ago. The effect she had on him was like nothing he'd ever come across, unexplainable but undeniable.

She spoke, then, quietly, and he remembered with an unpleasant jolt that she was only an unwilling visitor here. He couldn't allow himself to get acclimated. "So it seems I'll be performing tonight. Any advice?" she said to both of them, eyes trained on the sharp, colorful points of the tents peeking out from above the treetops in front of them. They'd been busy burying that thing for longer than it had seemed; it was going on noontime now, and in just a few hours, the grassy clearing beside the tracks would be a buzzing hive of activity. Even now, Sid and Kilik would be in town shouting and proclaiming, handing out flyers, drawing in the people, and everyone else would be preparing for the show. They'd only be doing half the usual set up, since they were only staying here a day or two, but it would let off some steam for everyone nonetheless, and make the rest of their trip to Brooklyn easier.

"Just stay calm," Black Star told her. "Even if you make a mistake, none of the rubes know what you're supposed to be doing, so they won't even notice. Tsubaki's act is good that way. If I miss the target, even a moron knows, but you've got a lot of leeway. Just keep smilin'."

She sighed gustily and gave a small grin. "Thank you. I suppose I should go start getting everything ready. You know I'm a tad angry at Tsubaki for pushing me into this?"

Black Star chuckled at her, twirling the shovel deftly. "Nah, she wouldn't ask you to if she didn't think you could pull it off. It's just that we need a few people on guard duty tonight still, so Stein and Marie will be busy, at the least. We have to fill the time up in the main show or people will start askin' for admission back."

"Guard duty? Are there more of those things?" she said, brows drawing together. She didn't ask why they were stopping to perform, so suddenly; it was obvious. It was as much of a need as breathing to the circus folk.

"Probably not, but you never know. This many people all together, it's just smart to keep an eye out, even with me around to protect them! Everyone knows I'm invincible, but it's policy, you know?" Black Star puffed his chest out ridiculously at his boast and Maka only just hid her smile.

"Ah, well, I see." They drew closer to the tents and she trotted off, waving with her good arm. "Wish me luck!" she called over her shoulder.

"Luck!" Black Star roared after her, waving back ferociously with his whole arm. She giggled and disappeared around a corner. "So do you believe all that? About the end of the world, burying the dead facedown?" Black Star said suddenly.

Soul thought about the dead blackened thing, digging blindly, ravenously forward as the world above burned, cracking earth and stone between her gray gravestone teeth, and shuddered. "Not really," he replied, ice in his spine. "But, you know, why risk it?"

Black Star gave a rather grim laugh. "I suppose. God knows we've seen enough shit happen already that I never thought would. Hope your girl does good. See ya later!" He took off like a whirlwind before Soul could do more than just begin to curse at him.

* * *

Three hours to showtime, Maka plastered herself to Aka's side, grooming him compulsively to the sounds of the gathering crowds, even though he was clean as a whistle, gleaming like a brand new penny. She looked at the saddle Tsubaki had given her to use tonight, wild roses and swirling vines embossed beautifully on the dark leather, and felt sick, nauseated with fear, With every passing moment it got worse. She wasn't prepared for this, she hadn't practiced long enough, and she was nearly certain that she was a person who liked to be fully in control, fully ready and entirely confident, before doing a thing. Aka flicked an ear back to her lazily, buried up to his eyes in hay, as she murmured to him, trying to calm her own nerves more than anything else. It wasn't working. She was vaguely considering running when Blair materialized, leaning a hip lissomely against a bale of hay and crossing her arms, which miraculously succeeded in pushing her breasts up even higher. "Hello there," she positively purred, tilted hazel eyes alight in a way that put Maka instantly on her guard.

"Hello. Why are you looking at me like I'm dinner?" she said warily.

Blair snickered at that, for some reason. "Oh, honey, I don't think you're my type. I hear Tsubaki's put you in the ring tonight?"

"Yes," Maka moaned, pushing her forehead against Aka's smooth neck and slinging an arm over his back. "I'm going to fall off and be killed, or I'll just faint in front of everyone."

"You're doing us all a real big favor," Blair observed, spreading a hand out and examining her scarlet nails critically. "Stein and Marie have another one of their mysterious assignments tonight. It seems we need extra security. Strange, no?"

Maka eyed her uncertainly. She had no idea whether or not the entire circus knew about the nighttime escapades of her friends, and she didn't know if she should tell anyone. She really should have asked Tsubaki to explain a little more clearly, but she'd been so focused on getting her scythe back that she hadn't thought to do so. Finally she settled on a noncommittal, "Yes indeed," and left it at that.

Blair smiled, ripe cherry lips curling lavishly. "It's rather a big deal," she said, with such overly saccharine tones that Maka immediately started shoving her brushes into her grooming kit and turning to escape. Blair reached out and linked arms with her before she could do so, nearly mashing Maka into her aggressively displayed cleavage. "We need to celebrate! To give you a proper welcome into the performing arts! You're all grown up now, you're going to do so well! I'm just so happy for you!" she squealed, starry eyed. Maka could only hang her head in defeat as she was dragged away. Aka watched her go, giving a final snort before returning to his dinner and abandoning her to her fate.

Blair's wagon, still on the tracks, was a vibrant, autumnal orange, as bright as one of her tigers, with a cheerful, mossy green roof. The inside was much less innocent; it looked like a brothel, Maka thought in dismay, looking around with apprehension at the crimson silks draping the walls, and at the floor, which was almost completely covered with humongous overstuffed pillows. The sweet smoky scent of incense was thick in the air and there were clothes scattered everywhere, most of which barely looked like clothing at all. She was so bemused by the place, by the way scandal simply oozed out of every corner, by the complex arcane-looking charts tacked on the walls, that it took her a moment to notice Tsubaki sitting on the fluffy bed, cast stuck carefully out in front of her, and Mira Nygus, bandages wrinkled around her long-lashed eyes in a smile.

"Help me," she said immediately to them both as Blair dove into a corner, clothing flying up in all directions. "This is your fault," she added to Tsubaki, who shrugged, palms in the air.

"I'm sorry! But this will be so good for you, you'll love it once you're out there! You'll really be one of us," she said fondly. Maka stared at her, catching the hidden meaning. Tsubaki was doing this, not only because it was needed, but because it would make Maka more trusted among the circus folk, which meant more independence, which meant more chances to find out who she was.

"Thank you," she said, heartfelt, touched at the actions this soft-spoken, gentle-hearted girl, who'd welcomed her with open arms.

Mira went over and sat beside Tsubaki, flinging her long legs up on the bed and crossing her arms behind her dreadlocked head. "This is so damn comfortable, Blair," she said happily, wriggling luxuriously down into it.

"I'm aware. It's useful, too," Blair said with a saucy wink. She held up something horrendously yellow and glittery to Maka's front, tilted her head consideringly, then tossed it aside.

"What's happening?" Maka said edgily, shifting towards the door.

Tsubaki laughed, soft chiming mirth. She was wrapped in the most beautiful garment Maka had ever seen, a kimono of dusty dove-colored silk, stitched with coral camellias, a single white crane raising its head and wings proudly on her side. Tiny pink tassels dangled from the edges, emphasizing every motion she made. It was easy for her to force Maka into playing dress up! Anything Tsubaki put on became even more lovely just by proximity to her. It wasn't fair. "You have to look the part," she said gleefully. "You're going to be so beautiful! I can't wait!" Behind her, Nygus started laughing out loud, probably at the look on Maka's face.

Maka gaped at them and then dived at the door, just getting the heart-shaped knob in her hands before Blair deftly reached up and slid the lock closed. "No no no," she chided, waggling a finger. "Bad girl!"

"I can't wear the things you two wear," Maka sputtered, looking between Blair and Tsubaki helplessly. "I'm all- I don't look like you two do! I'm all- I'm not- no!"

"She's right, Blair, she isn't going to fit into anything of yours," Mira drawled, yawning. "I brought you one of my old ones." She flapped a bandaged hand.

Blair pouted a little. "But this was all my idea," she said petulantly.

"You can paint her," Mira offered, sticking a finger under one of the pale bandages crossing her forehead and scratching.

Blair tilted her head, then sighed. "Fine, I suppose." An instant later, she was back to bouncing perfumed excess, snatching up the parcel beside Mira and ripping it open. Shreds of brown wrapping paper wafted to the floor as she held up the outfit. "Ooh, I take back everything, this is just adorable!" she crooned.

"It's been in storage but I think it will do," Mira said, yawning. She looked very lovely, as always, but rather tired.

Maka took a deep breath before looking at the outfit. "That's not terrible," she said at last. Blair handed it to her with a small, pretty scowl wrinkling her delicate features.

Mira smiled at Maka again. "I thought you'd be nervous enough anyway. The last thing you need to worry about is displaying your bits to the crowd. It's comfortable, too, you can move in it."

"Thank you! Really, thank you." Maka eyed the tiny, rejected scrap of lace Blair was looking at sadly and said again, in passionate relief, "Thank you!"

"Any time," Mira replied cheerfully. "Now come on, girl, let's get you prettied up. You'll like it when we're done, I promise. I'll keep these two in check." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at Tsubaki and Blair. "Face paint last, outfit first," she said in a businesslike fashion.

Maka stood there, feeling extremely young, Mira's outfit dangling from her fingers. "So what did you do when you performed?" she asked in a desperate bid to change the subject.

"I was just Sid's assistant. Got tired of being second fiddle, and performing was never my thing anyway. I started building props and what do you know, I'm damn handy with a knife and a hammer," Mira said, grinning and cracking her knuckles. "Come on, strip down. We're all girls."

"Oh-oh," Maka said in distress, feeling her cheeks turn hot. "All right, I just- please don't laugh at me. I don't do this kind of thing. I don't wear makeup and fancy clothes. Not even before, I don't think." Had she, before, been this kind of girl, the type who wore sequins and glamour, who rouged her cheeks and batted her lashes and kicked up her high heels? She strained, clawed at the brick wall so hard that pain almost buckled her knees, but she still couldn't say. It was only instinct that told her this was new territory. Most girls grew up learning these things from their mothers, didn't they? But then, her instincts also told her that she didn't know her mother well at all. Her heart grew a little heavy at the murky remembrance.

"Maka, it will all be all right. We don't mean to pressure you, I'm sorry," Tsubaki broke in gently.

Mira tilted her head and regarded her, dark eyes deep between her snowy wrappings. "The Dire Circus is a place where you can be anything you want to, regardless of what you were before," she said after a moment.

Maka considered that, looked at the outfit again, looked at the stunning women surrounding her, and gave in. She wanted to be a part of this circus, a part of all the dark glamour, the sly glittering artistry. She wanted somewhere to belong. "Fine," she squeaked, reaching for the first button of her blouse. She'd chosen one that buttoned right up the front, like a man's, because it was easier to get on and off without aggravating her shoulder. It was a wise choice. Tonight would be hard enough on her shoulder. She'd just have to go easy on it.

"I truly think you're going to surprise yourself. You're a smart girl, I can tell, a real live wire. You've got the snap and sizzle circus folk need. It'll go fine tonight," Mira said, helping her remove her shirt with cool deft fingers. No one blinked an eye at the bandages shrouding her shoulder, which told her everything she needed to know about just how deep the violence went in this circus- but she didn't have enough room in her stage-frightened brain to pry into that just now.

"You're going to do just wonderfully, I know it," Blair added, beaming in an almost motherly fashion that contrasted oddly with her lush purple waves. She then proceeded to peer thoughtfully down at her breasts and adjust them upwards, which somewhat ruined the maternal effect.

"I agree!" Tsubaki said happily, clapping her hands together.

Blair and Mira surrounded her, buttoning and tucking and adjusting, fingertips dancing over her skin in a feminine ritual as old as time, while Tsubaki advised from her post on the bed, until finally they stepped back, looking identically pleased. Maka blinked down at herself and shivered, not because it was cold, but because she felt unbelievably exposed, and at the same time, like she was wearing someone else's skin. If she were to look in a mirror, it would be yet another new girl staring back at her, and her life was crowded enough with ghosts as it was. "This?" she whispered, smoothing a hand tentatively across fabric that made her think of the fireflies. She wondered, suddenly, achingly, if her soup-making smudge of a father would be proud of her, if he missed her as much as she missed him.

"This," Mira echoed confidently, a brush full of something glossy and dark held steady in her capable hands. "You're a vision, doll, the crowd's going to roar."

* * *

The stark red mask was ever so slightly uncomfortable, as always, bumping the bridge of his nose and pinching his ears. It took a moment of wrangling to fix the tie in the back, to push it to a position where it wouldn't bother his scabbing wound. He took a moment to look down, to examine his reflection in the still water of his washbucket. The mask was fitting, plain and anonymous, the bloody lacquer the only sign as to what lay within him, and his eyes were hidden in shadows.

He put his head down as he worked his way through the crowds, following the silver, empty gaze of the skull sitting proud atop the biggest tent. He paused for a moment, to watch Black Star juggle four daggers with one hand before a wonderstruck gaggle of kids, laughing uproariously all the while, and then moved on. No one bothered him, a standard side effect of the mask, and in no time at all he was in front of his piano, fingers electric atop the ivories. "Hello. I've missed you," he whispered to it, burning up, and then started to play, launching into the notes with a feeling like coming home.

The time passed quickly, as it always did, and yet beautifully slowly. He caught sight of Tsubaki, sitting primly in the front row, two crutches leaning fornornly beside her, and spared her a nod, having finally realized why she was pushing Maka into the ring so soon- to help her gain the freedom to find her past. The rubes trickled in, filling up the seats, until he was surrounded by a solid mass of humanity, punctuated by the constellations pricked into the canvas. The air was thick with whispers and excited chatter, packed with the surreal. It was intoxicating, heavenly travel through sound, and he shut his eyes to bask in it. Behind the mask, he didn't have to fear sharp whispers or screams. All he had to do was smile invisibly when he heard them wonder at the endless, deep, darting music. At least he knew for certain he was good at one thing in his life.

He closed his ears to Lord Death as he played ringmaster, still angry, and for a moment the music went wild, but he calmed himself and reined it in, restrained it. The dogs came in, pushing each other in strollers, dressed up in polka dots and hats, and then Black Star appeared out of nowhere, knives bristling from between every finger of his closed fists; they slashed through the air so fast they screamed, and every single one hit the bullseye. He did it again, and again, barely looking, and each time they were within a hand's span of each other, clustered so tightly that their hilts brushed. He did a victory lap around the ring that was mostly cartwheels, flexing his arms, and then sprang over the ring's fence to elbow his way to a seat beside Tsubaki.

Blair slunk in next, hips swiveling outrageously, to her usual accompaniment of shouts and raucous wolfwhistles, blowing kisses as she cracked her whip. Her lions loved her, worshiped her, did everything she asked even as their massive teeth caught all the light, and her oldest tigress leapt through burning blazing rings as if it bored her; the flames were less bright than her shining fur. She returned to her mistress with lazy grace, and her hungry gaze quieted the shrieking crowd. Soul riffed on their feline movements, fingers flying, heavy primal accompaniment that suited their regal viciousness. Blair led her cats out like a queen, leaving the black whip lying in the center of the ring, a clear signal. She didn't need it. The crowd ate it up.

There was a pause, then, only a few seconds, and none of the audience knew enough to notice the delay, but Soul did. He knew, he knew who was coming, and his throat closed around his strained breath.

When her copper horse trotted in, ears pricked curiously at the crowd, gait more of a nervous Pegasus bounce than anything respectably equine, he barely recognized her atop the beast. Only the flash of her evergreen eyes put air back in his lungs as she swept by, divine, a valkyrie set aflame. Red and amber and deepest black flared up around her, shreds of cloth licking tenderly at her bare creamy thighs. Her lips were dark, the color of dying coals, and she was gloved to the elbow in silks no less black. Winged thumbprints of slick scarlet edged her eyes, panda prints of otherwordly richness, and a wide collar of chunky golden chains spread over her shoulders, clanking in time to her mount's proud steps. He knew that the bandages were hidden beneath it, covering the wound she'd gotten defending him, saving him, and something happened then that hadn't happened since he was a child. He watched her tear around the ring, teeth bared in a wild smile, riding backwards then forwards then rising to her booted feet as if gravity had no hold on her, and then he missed a note.

* * *

FOOTNOTES

1: 'Live wire' means a lively, energetic person, about the same as today.

2: A 'rube' is technically an unsophisticated person, usually from the country, but it can more specifically be a term used by circus folk for the people who attend their performances, even if they're from the city.

3: The ringmaster is the person who announces each act, though Lord Death only speaks at the beginning of the main show.

4: 'Equine' just means horse or horse-like.

* * *

**Author says**: Here you go! Hope you enjoy! I promise you lots of juicy information about Soul's past within two chapters at the MOST, but possibly next chapter. Just depends how things develop. Thank you so much for reading/reviewing! :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Genesis **[jen-_uh-sis_], _noun._ 1: an origin, creation, or beginning.

* * *

She opened the door to Tsubaki's trailer upon hearing the knocking, expecting the owner, or perhaps Black Star, and stood there blinking when it was only Soul, looking uncomfortable and exhausted. "Hello," she said after a moment.

"Hello," he answered gruffly, looking anywhere but at her. She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes and waited as patiently as she could manage. He liked to think about his words, usually, to examine them before he let them out. "Do you want to finish the book?" he finally bit out.

"Jane Eyre?" she squeaked, joy overinflating her lungs.

"Yes," he grumbled. "That."

"Yes! Yes, please, I do!" She only just restained herself from jumping up and down. It was clear she had an addiction.

"All right. Come on, then." He slouched away and she followed in his wake. His pale hair was unusually messy, even for him, and a ghost of whitish beard was shadowing his jaw, strange contrast against his tanned skin.

"Have you finished it already? Do you know the ending?" she asked, tagging along, taking two steps for every one of his. He was walking very fast. "And where are we going?" She looked at the bruised smudges under his eyes and wondered if he'd slept at all yet, if his injuries were still bothering him. He was upright, moving more easily with no sign of dizziness or pain, but nonetheless, she slowed her steps, forcing him to slow his own, though he sent her an irritated scowl.

"Yes, yes, and dogs," he said shortly. The train was stopped just now along the tracks, a short break so the livestock could be fed and exercised, but it wouldn't last long. Within the hour the train would be chugging onwards again, bound for Brooklyn. The circus really did spoil their animals- how many businesses would bother stopping just to let their stock stretch their legs? Not many, and she loved it.

"Hmm," she mused. She watched the muscle jumping in his temple as he ground his jaw and sighed to herself. That wayward look was back in his eyes, the predatory darting glint, and the rough edge to his voice was like a blade being sharpened. The thing eating at him was back. She resolved that she would coerce him into reading to her as long as possible, and if the caravan resumed travel before she could get back to Tsubaki's, well, there were worse places to spend a few hours than cuddling with adorable fluffy mongrels. "You don't have to try and be so nice. I didn't forget our challenge. I'm still going to flatten you," she teased. "As soon as my shoulder stops hurting, you'd best watch your steps."

His lips did that muted fidgeting thing that passed for a smile. "I don't think I've ever been so frightened. Will you take mercy on me if I cry?"

She snorted, delighted as she always was when he loosed the reins on his dry sarcastic humor. "Never. Mercy is for the weak."

He shot her an amused sideways glance. She realized he was actually taller than she'd thought as she looked up at him; maybe it was the habitual slouch in his shoulders or the way he ducked his head to avoid meeting people's eyes that made him seem shorter than he really was. It bothered her, just a bit, even as she enjoyed the view. She found herself stretching up almost without realizing it. After having a slight overreaction to Black Star challenging her to a muffin eating contest, which eventually culminated in a headlock and several destroyed tent poles, she'd discovered that she had a competitive streak, but apparently it stretched wide enough that she was actually irritated to be shorter than someone despite the fact that she was shorter than most people she met. "You did awfully well last night," he told her casually.

"I was so terrified I barely remember a thing," she confessed, putting her face in her hands. "Did you see when I almost fell off?"

"No. Sounds entertaining, though."

"Mm, you're rude. I almost did. It was close. I had to grab mane to keep from going headfirst into the ground."

"Perhaps you should practice more," he said snidely, lifting a brow.

She slit her eyes at him. "Perhaps you should be a good friend and lavish me with praise for not dying."

"If I did that you'd get complacent, and then where would we be?"

"Well, right now we're here," she said in aggravation, sliding the heavy metal door open with a grunt, before clambering up into the train car holding the snuffling, yipping dogs and turning to look down at him. "And I want to know what happens to Jane- ow!"

"What ow?"

"Ow," she complained again, flapping her hand before looking at it more closely. "I cut my finger on something, there's a sharp bit on this. We should fix it, I wouldn't want one of the dogs to get caught on it." He didn't answer. She stuck her finger in her mouth and sucked the blood, frowning at the edge of the door, trying to see the rough patch on the metal that had torn her skin.

"Maka," came his voice, hushed and wrong. It was a whisper from a dead man. "Maka. You should go."

She peered down at him, finger still in her mouth, and whatever question she was going to ask died in her alongside her breath. Behind her, one of the dogs let out a low rumbling growl. She took her finger from her mouth and his eyes followed it. A drop of blood gathered on the tip of her finger and fell, and he licked his lips like a starving man before a feast. "Soul," she said, very close to frightened, hanging on by a thread. "I can't- you're blocking the door."

He didn't move, but his eyes flicked up to meet hers. She was too intrigued by the look on his face to give in to the scream bubbling in her throat. The pressing heat of his bloodlust was like a physical touch, an impermeable, invisible wall of hungry rage that brought hot purposeless tears to her eyes. All the tiny parts of her wanted to run and never look back. "Maka," he hissed again, eyes branding her. "You're bleeding."

She was seeing it now in the stark daylight, the thing in him, as she never had, and it was terrifying. She would rather face ten more of those scorched, winged monstrosities than see all the light and humor and spirit in his face turn black and bestial. She was just starting to break him open, to wriggle her way in past his shields, and the tiny glimpses he allowed her to have were precious to her for reasons not yet entirely solidifed. Nonetheless, they were hers, and she refused to let them go. She drew on all her stubbornness, took advantage of her higher ground, and lashed out, driving her boot heel into his shoulder.

He fell over so easily that she suspected he'd been off balance, on the brink of lunging at her. He actually stumbled back and then ended up sitting, hard, in the chunky dark rocks that sloped up to the railroad ties. She hopped down and marched over to him, shoving her dripping carmine finger practically in his face. "Here," she growled as fiercely as she could over the hummingbird drumbeat of her pulse. "Are you going to bite it off, then? Kill me? What?"

"I want to," he blurted, turning his head from side to side, scrabbling backwards in a desperate bid to avoid her hand. She followed implacably, waving her blood under his nose.

"Are you going to?"

"I want to," he moaned, clutching his hair, more animal than man in his scuttling movements.

"But are you going to?" she persisted.

"No!"

They fell very still. She withdrew her hand, slowly enough that it would show him she wasn't afraid, even though she was, so afraid that she had to sit down herself a moment later, not caring that the sharp rocks dug into her hips. She looked at him, waited, and eventually he raised his sorrowful haunted eyes to hers. His stricken expression was almost childlike and her heart broke a little.

"What happened to you?" she asked gravely.

He pressed his lips together. "Not yet."

Not now, then, but in time. She would earn the story. She would turn herself into someone he could trust. She nodded, accepted it, stomped on her blazing curiosity, and absently put her stinging finger back in her mouth. "I'm sorry," she started, intending to apologize for kicking him so enthusiastically.

"You're sorry," he interrupted incredulously. "You? Why? Why are you sorry? Maka, I'm not safe to be around!"

She snarled at him, picked up a rock and threw it, hitting him squarely in the shoulder, right where she'd just kicked him, all desire to apologize dissipating. "You aren't allowed to tell me what to do! I'm an adult and I make my own choices. If I want to be around you I will!" He just shook his head dumbly. She picked up another rock, but then sighed and let it drop. "My blood didn't do this to you before," she said, half asking.

"I'm insane, Maka, there's not really a pattern to it," he said bitterly, watching her face. She realized, dully, that the dogs were howling.

A pair of filthy, singed, untied boots appeared next to her and she lifted her head to see Black Star. He was as serious as she'd ever seen him, and he didn't look at Soul at all. Before she could protest, he had hauled her upright and was spinning her around. He spotted the red smudge on her finger almost instantly and lifted it up before his eyes to examine it. She felt drained and unhappy, all her stubbornness used up, so she stood there limply and let him.

He desisted once he was satisfied she was in one piece. The dog were still keening, a cold carnivorous symphony that made her want to hide. "He took me here because he knew the dogs would feel- would feel it, and warn us," she realized in subtle horror. "Isn't that right?" she added in Soul's direction. "That's why you like them so much."

"Yes," he said miserably. He seemed almost stunned by it all.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Black Star said bluntly to him, angrily, shouldering her aside and putting himself between her and Soul. Soul just shrugged, still looking down, and then he unfolded himself from the ground and strode off, fast, but with tragedy etched into every line of his drooping figure. She watched him go and had only just stopped her fearful, acid tears when Black Star turned back to her.

"He didn't do anything," she hastened to say.

"This time," Black Star snapped. He'd seen enough of what happened, then, to know how close to the breaking point Soul had gotten. He was fidgety, fretful in every movement. She could tell he hated this, hated flinging such awful things in the face of his friend. For someone so naturally buoyant with life, things of this kind were exponentially worse.

"I don't remember what to do with things like this," she sighed. "With people like him. Am I foolish, for wanting to- to help him?"

Black Star considered that, squinting thoughtfully. "I don't know. Most wouldn't bother and anyway I've never met anyone else like him. Do you see this?" He tugged the collar of his shirt aside and pointed at a long, ragged scar tracing silver from his throat across the line of his collarbone. It began with what looked suspiciously like a bite mark, precise, almost surgical, directly over his jugular.

"What is it?" she said, even though she already knew.

"Soul did that to me," he said quietly, mouth twisting. "He's hurt people before."

She stared at it numbly. "Soul did that?"

He pulled his shirt back into order and linked his hands behind his head uncomfortably. "Yes. Look, Maka, I think you're good for him in some odd way. But you need to be careful. I'm fucking phenomenal but even I can't watch you every hour."

She swallowed the sour taste of anger from her mouth before going over to shut the door to the dog's wagon. They'd finally quieted, though they were all huddled together against the back wall, and she gave them a gentle reassuring croon before sliding the lock closed. "I will be. I have been. I don't want to be the kind of person who leaves someone alone."

"Ah, you're not, bearcat," he said firmly, giving her a roughly awkward pat on the head. "Now come on already. Nygus made cookies! She sent me to find you before we take off again!" In an instant, he was back to buzzing energy, grinning like a fool at her, practically drooling at the thought of sugar. "Come on!" He took her elbow and dragged her onwards, almost skipping.

"How far are we from Brooklyn?" she asked, smiling a little in spite of herself. It was physically impossible to be morose in the face of such expansive enthusiasm. Anyway, the mental picture she was getting of no-nonsense Mira in full, domestic housewife gear, complete with a frilly apron, was priceless.

"Three days, give or take," he told her. "It'll be fun."

She quirked a brow, distracted from her plot to steal cookies and sneak them to Soul. "Fun? Why, what's there that's fun?"

He positively cackled. A blade appeared out of nowhere and he waved it at her like a deranged pirate, making a ridiculously excited face as he danced around. "Lots of beasties to kill and lots of pockets to empty," he said with darkly edged glee. "Lots and lots. We'll be there at least two weeks, if not longer."

She stared at him, turned on her heel, and left, even cookies unable to lure her back from the shivers lancing up her raw nerves at the vivid memory of killing, the sights and sounds of it, the thick nauseating stench of unnatural flesh. Her shoulder ached, suddenly, strongly, and she curled up in Tsubaki's wagon and shook silently under a blanket, trying and failing to make her skin forget the patterns of blood it had borne so recently, of the monster's blood, and hers, and Soul's. She thought maybe she had once known a word for this feeling, but it was gone.

* * *

The Dire Circus settled on the edge of Brooklyn, close enough that the factory smoke tinted the sunsets with vivid brightness, but far enough away that the air was still fresh and clean. It would be deeply dark at night, forest sounds all around, with no hint of lively city denseness, but close enough that the Brooklyn citizens wouldn't have far at all to travel for the show, and could even walk if they liked; it was perfect. The empty field they rented was so spacious, even if it did run parallel to a busy road, that everyone spread out, scattering their wagons much further apart than they usually did, luxuriating in the unusual space and privacy. Tsubaki had hers hauled underneath a willow tree, and she and the tree were so alike in their tall slender grace that it was almost too lovely, watching her settled under it, cast hidden beneath the lacy lengths of her skirt, laughing with Black Star. Maka appreciated the beauty of the placid scene, but she wasn't in the mood for it. She decided to give in to her apparent urge to pout and left them to go sulk beside Aka.

She didn't have long to enjoy his quiet alfalfa-scented company, though. It wasn't ten minutes before Mira showed up. "Maka," she said in brusque greeting. "Care to come help me set up a few booths?"

"Of course," Maka sighed, following with dragging steps. Everything was irritating her; the pinch of her boots, the rasp of her bandanges on the itching scabs of her wound, even the birdsong. She was aware that she was pouting like a child, but who was she to argue with her brain? It had been through enough already, poor thing.

"What's eating you?" Mira asked, not unsympathetically, displaying that almost uncanny ability of hers to read people with only the barest of glances.

"Oh, everything, really. I still don't have any idea who I am and now I'm halfway across the country from where I was found," Maka said harshly. "Black Star's treating me like a baby, he follows me around, I'm going to have to perform again since Tsubaki's still hurt, and I just- well. Nothing's going the way it should."

Mira chuckled fondly. "Black Star means well. He's simply a natural born moron sometimes. The boy doesn't stop to think and his heart's too big. It's a surprisingly dangerous combination." She handed Maka a hammer and pointed her in the direction of a broken panel on the side of the booth where the little twins would sit silently before gawking crowds. "Work out some aggression on that. Listen, it sounds to me like you think you're standing still, but personally I think you're doing good here. Is it so bad?"

"I have a family. I have a father, and maybe a mother, and friends," Maka said helplessly. It wasn't, bad, in fact, it was rather wonderful, but that wasn't at all the point. She pounded away on a nail like her life depended on it.

"You may never get your memories back," Mira said thoughtfully. "If it never happens, what will you do?"

"I hadn't thought of that," Maka breathed, another nail slipping from between her fingers. She bent down automatically to pick it up, not seeing a thing, struck by the awfulness of Mira's words. "It won't happen. I'll remember. I can't just let it all go."

Mira bumped Maka's elbow comfortingly with her own, the brush of her bandages surprisingly soft. "I know, doll, I know. We worry about you, Sid and I. You remind me of Black Star, a bit."

"What? Oh, Lord, say it isn't so," Maka answered, laughing behind her hand at the very thought.

Mira grinned. "Well, honestly, yes. It's just in the way you both go after a thing without letting anything stop you."

"Thanks, I think," Maka snorted, shaking her head. She was mid hammer-swing when she paused, mirth fading at the telltale prickle dusting the nape of her neck. She swung around, and there he was, red eyes watching her from a distance in a way both angry and confused. They stood there, mutually electric, ignoring the bustle of the performers passing between them, eyes locked, she with her hammer halfway raised and he with a mob of leashed dogs milling around him, getting more tangled up by the second.

Hesitantly, she lifted her hand in a stilted wave. He shuddered, looked away, and the moment shattered. Before she could do anything else he was gone. The rasping howl of one of his dogs stung her ears.

"What if I have no idea how to go after a thing?" she asked, barely resisting the urge to kick the booth they'd just repaired.

Mira hummed consideringly, pulling a stray length of bandage from her pocket and tying her thick locks of hair up deftly. She looked very young just then, almost girlish, but her tone was wise with years and experience. "All you can do is try. If you never try, you'll never succeed."

"Try," Maka echoed grimly. "Yes. Of course." The two women fell back to hammering, and Mira indulged Maka's anger for the rest of the day, letting her fling around boards and hammers and canvas as viciously as she wanted, a vain attempt to dull the sporadic tingle at the back of her neck.

The day wore on. Around them, structures rose, the best of their best, every stop pulled for the massive crowds that would come from such a large place as Brooklyn. A few motorcars rolled by and slowed to look, and Maka trotted up to hand them flyers when she had the chance, pasting her best, toothiest smile on as she did so. Eventually evening came, and the lively glow of Brooklyn on the horizon became more apparent, a false sunrise dawning in the distance as the moon rose.

She was just unfolding various banners and signs for the booths, enjoying the cooler shadows after the heat of the day, when Soul, Black Star, Stein, Sid, and Marie blew by her at unbelievable speeds, Stein holding his spectacles on with both hands. "Coming?" Black Star shouted over his shoulder before tossing something at her: she only just caught it, hands falling around the comfortingly silky handle of her scythe.

"Coming!" she called back, but she just stood there dumbfounded, and then Mira caught her up by the hand and bodily yanked her after them all. She broke into a stumbling jog, and then, spurred on by the drumbeat of their steps, launched into the quickest run she could manage. She was up among them in a minute, dashing alongside the pack and feeling like a wolf. Her scythe was a pleasant weight as she went.

"Are you sure?" Soul panted at her, hurdling a stay piece of lumber like a deer as they left the edges of the circus' field.

She blinked at the unexpected show of athleticism from someone so generally laid back, and nodded, panting herself now; all seven of them were sprinting with full dedication, heading towards the faroff sunrise deception of Brooklyn. "Yes!" she told him, not even knowing what she was agreeing to, but the smile he gave her was full, and fierce, and beautiful, so she decided not to overthink it. His smiles, the real ones, the ones that showed his secret sweetness beside his brutal teeth, had an effect on her that was warmly instantaneous. She smiled back, but then she put her head down and concentrated on keeping up without braining anyone with her scythe, which was harder than it would seem.

"Four of them, and Kid's mostly of commission right now," Marie said suddenly, voice just as light and sugary as always, if not a little breathless. She was clutching a hammer with the hand that wasn't smashing her bouncing breasts into submission, and Maka realized it was the one she'd been using herself all day; Mira must have snatched it up and handed it to her. Well, whatever it was about to be used for was just as much service for the Dire Circus as building a display was.

"Which means his girls will be useless as well," Stein sighed dismally. He, strangely enough, didn't even sound winded.

"We don't need the girls, and anyway they'll be fine," Mira put in confidently, lips peeled back in a warlike grimace, eyes alight. Sid was watching her like she was the sun and the moon and the stars as well.

"What?" Maka sputtered to Soul, feeling her lungs start to burn.

"Them. They. Things!" he gasped nonsensically, clutching his side like he was about to keel over. His ribs must still be giving him problems.

She had to take a moment to think before she understood him, and then her guts twisted up so harsh and hard that she felt like she just might fall over too. One lone thing, just one monster dripping evil, had been enough to nearly send her screaming into the night, and only Soul's unconscious vulnerability behind her hand stayed her frightened feet. Four of them- she was nearly bumping up against him before she realized, panicking, and when he glanced at her, his brows snapped together.

They reached for each other's hands at the same time, possibly, or perhaps they just read each other's minds. However it happened, it did, and she clutched his calloused palm like it could save her life, took strength from it, and managed to keep her steps steady. He held her hand while they ran, and despite the deadly ridiculousness of this surreal situation, she couldn't stop her hitching laughter when he slammed full into Sid's broad back as the other man skidded to a stop, along with the rest of them.

Sid didn't move an inch, but Soul practically bounced, and she put an arm out to him as he reeled, that hysterical mayhem still fizzing in her bloodstream, but he waved her away and stumbled a step off, retching. She sobered, waited for him, and he came back to the group wiping his mouth on his sleeve, looking pale and dizzy and not at all well, his concussion obviously making itself known with full force. She took his hand again, at once, unable to care about propriety or misread signals or anything at all. He let her, and though he didn't look at her, his grip was firm and unhesitating. How was it that now, when she herself was a wreck, he was more mundane and normal than he'd ever been? This was his element, she decided, and she straightened her spine. She would be worthy.

"There," Stein and Sid said simultenously; they then shot each other disgruntled glances. Maka followed Stein's pointing finger and blinked. In the dim twilight were three shapes, coming toward them down the road them at a respectable clip. She licked her lips and held tighter to her scythe, but Soul shook his head imperceptibly.

"That's Death's son," he said breathlessly.

She returned her eyes to the three figures, and eventually they materialized more clearly into a dark-haired boy being supported by two statuesque blonde angels who smelled, even in the open air, of gunpowder and cheap perfume as they joined the group. The boy lifted his face to them; he was terribly pale, but his eyes were, very obviously, undeniably, glowing. They actually cast golden gleams upon the faces of the girls holding him upright. Soul gave her hand a little squeeze and she came back to herself with a start, brought down from her sudden chaos-fueled daydreams about gods and demons, and just which of the two would have golden eyes.

"Greetings, all," the boy said, low voice sounding very calm and polished, and not at all as if he was being bodily hauled about by attractive women. "They're approximately eight minutes twenty seconds behind us, all on foot. We need to get this moved south into the trees as far as possible before the fun starts. Understood?"

"Only four of them," Black Star said sadly, cracking his knuckles and then his neck. "I was expecting better things from you, Kidlet."

"Don't call me that," the boy said sternly. "And anyhow, information has changed, so don't be too disappointed. There are now six of them approaching. Now then. Onwards!" He pointed a shaking finger into the trees bordering the road, and everyone took off again, in such perfect practiced unison that if Soul hadn't still been holding her hand, Maka would have been left behind. She felt like she was floating, or flying, or perhaps drowning as they galloped through the forest. Suddenly everyone was armed, suddenly these people she'd eaten and laughed and lived with for over a month were shrieking warcries and bellowing raucous laughter. She heard Black Star make an excited bet with Mira as to which of them could take off the most limbs and went so lightheaded that she nearly tripped. Her skin remembered the hot slickness of blood and crawled in excited apprehension; she would be worthy.

"Here. We'll set up an ambush," the golden-eyed boy said after a time. The two girls flanking him placed him carefully against a tree, and he leaned on it like it was a throne. "Black Star, Mira. Go back three hundred yards and wait, you know the routine, make sure you herd them here. The rest of you, take cover and get ready."

"We're well aware of what we're doing and how to do it," Stein said, soft venom in his voice. Something suspiciously like a scalpel glinted in his hand.

"Soul," Maka hissed, become aware all at once of a very serious problem, "You're not armed!"

He shook his head, shoving her behind several bushes. In the blink of an eye, there was no one to be seen except the dark-haired boy, leaning in a patrician manner on his tree trunk. "It's fine, I'll explain later. Shh." He sounded pained, and she could just make out the fact that he was holding his ribs again.

She grunted and seriously considered just bashing him unconscious so he couldn't get himself hurt more than he still was, but then the dark-haired boy said, while carefully straightening his snappy suit, "Who's the new recruit, Evans?"

"Fuck you," Soul spat, seemingly out of reflex, and then, "Her name's Maka. She's one of your father's little debts." That choice of words, and his aggressive tone, earned him a sharp look from her, but then, now wasn't really the time to pursue questions about her past.

"Hello, Maka," the boy said, just as if they'd been introduced at teatime.

"Hello," she squeaked after a moment. This was insane. There were monsters, and boys with glowing eyes, and tattoos that moved as they pleased, and this was her second life. Her heart gave a great leap and blood roared in her ears. "Nice to meet you," she added, carried along on the adrenaline in her pulse.

"You as well," he returned equably, turning his gilt owlish gaze in roughly her direction. "Evans, I assume she's under your wing tonight?"

"Hell, she saved his ass once already, if anything, she's babysitting him tonight!" Black Star called from somewhere invisible above them. Beside her, Soul sighed audibly and put his forehead in his hand. She snickered soundlessly.

"Didn't I just tell you to circle around behind?" the suited boy said reproachfully.

"Oh, take the stick out, Kid," Black Star muttered, sounding put out. "I'm going, I'm going." A few leaves rustled and then, seemingly, he was gone from wherever he'd been. This was insanity, this casual banter while death came fast on their heels, and Maka decided, with a heady kind of abandon, that she would be the kind of person to embrace it.

Silence fell, then, broken only by the soft whirrs of crickets. Soul crouched beside her, gaze intense through the bushes. After a moment, she laid a fingertip on the back of his hand; he turned an inquiring eye to her. "Evans?" she mouthed.

He shook his head sternly, but then he smiled at her again, a true smile, young and free as he had never yet been in front of her. She matched it and for a breath, that tingling sensation from earlier in the day was back, but it shivered all over her flesh this time, curling her toes. He looked so happy, so peaceful, and she knew her thoughts would be written on her face, but maybe it was all right to let them go, just this once. His smile slipped a little, replaced by inquiring wonder, but before anything could be said or done, Marie sprang out from cover somewhere to their left and put her hammer deep into the skull of something bloated and white that Maka hadn't even seen. The thing didn't die, just yipped at Marie wordlessly, and then there were more of them, and Maka put her back against Soul's and her scythe to work as her thundering heart sang her a gruesome song.

It was amazingly loud as they fought, or at least, she thought it was, but she didn't think she could trust her senses right now, because blood was coating her nostrils and her lungs and her mouth, overwhelming everything except the feel of Soul behind her. There were gunshots coming from all around her, Stein was narrating everything he sliced off in a clinical sort of way, and Black Star and Mira were both whooping and cackling as they sprang about dealing mayhem.

Then it was over, so suddenly that she couldn't quite accept it, spinning around instead and hunting for the next thing that would try to kill her. Soul vomited again, in the bushes where they'd been hiding, and then he stumbled up to her and wrapped his hand around hers on the haft of her scythe. "It's over."

"Oh," she said, a bit stupidly, reaching up to wipe purplish gory something from his face before giving it up as impossible. There was just too much of it, whatever it was. "How'd I do? I promise I won't get complacent if you lavish me in praise."

He laughed even as he held onto his abused ribcage. "You're nifty, you know that," he said fondly between guffaws, and she grinned at him before sitting down with a thump, knees going jelly. It appeared he shared her sentiments about how much unneccessary work it was to remain upright, because he jointed her a second later, sprawling back without any care for the eviscerated insectile body he had to kick out of the way. She'd seen him carve it up, but she hadn't seen what he'd done it with, just a reddish glow out of the corner of her eye; another question atop a thousand others.

"That's quite a sight," the boy called Kid said, blinking at Soul, for some reason, before shaking his head and adjusting his suit once again. "Pattie. Liz. I'm going to require support again, I believe, my apologies." The blonde angels stepped up to either side of him, the smell of gunsmoke very strong now, and the easy way all three of them organized their bodies into the best, most efficient shape spoke volumes. Maka finally noticed the seeping wound on his calf and winced in sympathy.

The shorter angel had her shining head cocked and was staring right at Maka. "Hello," Maka said to her, feeling drunker than ever, even as she couldn't seem to get her rapid breathing under any kind of control.

"Hello," the little blonde chirped. Her eyes were very blue, her cheeks were round and pink, she seemed to be chewing gum, of all things, and her hair was snappily bobbed, but the overlarge gun shoved in her belt was all business. "I like you already. Friends?"

"Are you Pattie or Liz?" Maka asked airily. An attack of giggling took over, which made it even harder to breathe. "And yes, why not, friends! I can always use more friends! I lost all my old ones!" She plastered her filthy hands over her mouth to try and stop the painful laughter, but it was futile.

Black Star dropped into a crouch in front of her and put a finger under her chin, lifting her face for better examination. "She's all giddy on slicing," he said after a moment, sounding almost proud.

"I am no such thing," she denied, even as her laughter got closer and closer to miniature screams.

"Let's get a wriggle on, folks. There'll be plenty of medical fun for you tonight, Frank, it'll be my gift to you," Kid said dryly, clapping his hands even as he hung nearly suspended between his blondes.

Stein adjusted his glasses, leaving a scarlet thumbprint on one lens. "Thoughtful as always," he said, snakelike. His long coat was miraculously pristine, but his hands were uniformly red to the wrists.

"Indeed. These will need to be taken care of, we're far too close to city limits, but Father can handle it. Come on, come on." They moved off into the night as one, everyone supporting someone else, and behind them, six bodies that had once been men began to steam.

"I don't remember a thing that just happened," Maka told Soul fuzzily. She had her arm around his waist, and he had his arm slung over her shoulders, the same way they'd dragged themselves home after their previous battle, though it wasn't strictly necessary. "And I don't know which is worse to kill, a man or a monster, and aren't these the same? But I'm a murderer now, aren't I? And I don't remember-"

"You don't remember a lot," he hushed, a hint of amusement in his words. "It's all right, it's all right, I promise. Let's just get home."

"Okay," she agreed, swallowing hard at the sweetness of the last word. "The dogs. They howl, but they all still love you," she murmured, closing her eyes for a moment.

He sucked in a rasping breath. "I suppose so," he said, hidden depths strong in his voice.

"I'm all covered in blood," she said sadly.

"It will wash off," he told her, but his eyes gave away the lie.

* * *

FOOTNOTES

1: 'Nifty' meant the same thing then as now, i.e. good or cool.

2: 'Get a wriggle on' means to leave a place, take off, get moving.

3: I wasn't sure if the word 'okay' even existed in the '20s, but it appears it came into being as early as the 1830's, possibly as a result of the deliberate humorous misspelling '_orl korrekt'_ aka 'all correct'. A presidential candidate in the 1840's popularized the term by forming the 'OK Club'. So yes, it would have been part of vocabulary in the '20s.

* * *

**Author says**: Here you go! Fluff-ish, kind of, or bloody fluff, anyway. Enjoy, and thank you again to everyone who has been so wonderful and given me such helpful reviews and/or favorited or followed! Love you guys! :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Panacea **[pan-uh-_see_-uh], _noun_. 1: A remedy for all diseases or ills; a cure-all. 2: An answer or solution for all problems or difficulties.

* * *

They were perhaps halfway home, stumbling through the incomplete blackness in weary silence together, when Stein stiffened, lifting his nose as if scenting something, flinging out a hand to stop them all. "Marie," he said quietly. There was a brittle scrape to his voice that Maka picked up immediately, senses still sharpened by adrenaline, and judging by the way everyone else froze into deadly stillness, they'd picked it up too. Soul sidled closer to her, lips twisting.

Marie frowned, but didn't say anything, just turned and lifted the patch from over her eye, which appeared entirely normal, just as long-lashed and brightly hazel as her other eye, though she did have an outrageous tan line that nearly glowed under the moon. Her eye looked normal, but as her glance flicked over Maka, the strangest sensation crawled over her skin, heat and swarming tingles, as if a thousand ants were marching across her body.

But then Marie directed her gaze in the direction of the circus, and as her line of vision left Maka, so did the unpleasant feeling. The relief was short lived, because a second later Marie gave a gasping whimper and clapped her eyepatch back down, whirling to the group.

"There are more. They're moving in on the circus. Go!" she said, in a surprisingly violent bellow. This time, Maka wasn't nearly left behind as they all leapt into synchronous motion. She was at the front of the pack now, bounding ahead with the wind of unswerving dread speeding her feet. Only Black Star managed to keep up with her, and she knew that they were sprinting for the same reason, with the same fear. Tsubaki was injured, and she was alone. Maka pushed on, muscles screaming, uncaring of the branches that lashed her across the face, the vines that reached out to snare her flying feet, because Tsubaki was alone, and hurt, and there were monsters in the night.

She ran until the air in her lungs turned to bubbling vinegar, until her already overused legs felt like they weren't even attached to her body anymore, until she could see the twinkling lights of the circus, lanterns and candles winking with wrenching unwariness, glimmering like fireflies across the massive field. She burst out of the trees and, Black Star right at her side, barrelled toward the charming blue wagon sitting so prettily in the deep gracious arms of a willow, so far from the safety of the tents.

He didn't bother with the door; he did some kind of miraculous front flip and dived headfirst right through the window. Glass shattered, and she heard virulent cursing. He flung the door open from the inside just as she put her own hand on it, and the appalled look on his face told her everything.

"Where is she?" she rasped, coughing, mouth full of thick slimy spit.

"I don't know!" he roared, putting a fist wrist-deep into the blue siding. "I don't know! Fuck, Maka, I can't-"

She gripped his elbow, tried to feed him the remnants of her quailing overexerted courage through her words, airless and hitching as they were. "Even with a broken ankle Tsubaki's a goddess. You picked a good one, she'll be okay. She will. She will." She stopped speaking out loud, but repeated the last words in her head, over and over, a mantra and a prayer.

He breathed his panic out because he had no other choice, a slow shuddering groan, and gave his head one firm shake. "Okay."

"Okay. Let's go find her," she said. A heavy hand fell on her shoulder and she spun about with a yelp, only to see Soul's flushed face.

"No need," he told them before sitting down in a way that was nearly falling. "No need."

Maka was about to scream at him, but then she looked at him, more carefully, and the stark fear she saw in him forced her to pause. He was looking over her shoulder, pupils blown despite the inky darkness shrouding them. It took everything she had to turn around, and the high-pitched whine that left her throat at the sight of the malformed shadows slinking and leaping and flapping through the field towards the dancing circus lights was absolutely involuntary.

She started crying instantly, the tears leaking down her cheeks less the result of any outright emotion than simply the overflow of concentrated dull hopelessness. There were so, so many of them, she couldn't count, and they would see her soon, and she would die. She wanted to run, shamefully, but her feet wouldn't move. She couldn't move anything; she couldn't form a proper scream, she couldn't take flight, she couldn't even lift her scythe.

Soul reached up from the ground and took her paralyzed hand. "Let's watch the storm, Maka," he breathed, black hole gaze still burning at the circus.

Black Star had his head in his hands and was slumped against Tsubaki's trailer. "Again, this, again?" he was muttering. Maka stared at him, but she still couldn't move, not with her blood so thick and afraid, so she just watched the nightmares converge on the circus. No alarm had been raised. She could see no shapes that were human, no one waking to escape or fight. Not even the animals were sounding. Everyone was asleep, tired from a long day of work, unaware of the evil slowly surrounding them, of the teeth and claws and fangs being raised.

"They're all going to die," she said to herself, and then, as the bonds of primal panic loosened along with her lips, she repeated to Soul, in near-shout entirely uncaring of the nearness of the creeping beasts, "They're all going to die!" She saw Tsubaki, broken and motionless with all her grace gone, Mira with wide empty eyes reflecting the stars, Blair with her beautiful skin shredded all away, and her whole body twisted up into a firey knot of clenching denial. Never would that happen, never while she had breath left to fight with. She would be worthy. She would be worthy of this second chance, this new life, and more than that, she would not turn into a person who left others to die, regardless of whatever she might have been before. She tore her hand out of Soul's and ran, yet again, onward to the twinkling firefly lights. The sound that she made was more than a shout, more than a war cry, but it was so terrible that her tears came even faster. When she slammed her scythe into the spine of the first monster, the tears stopped, but not the sound. The sound kept coming, as she planted a foot on the thing's back to rip her blade free, as she whirled and leapt to the next one, and the next. Something wet and hot was all over her, horribly sticky, and she kept crying as she went on and on. It wasn't for several moments that she discovered she was calling for Tsubaki.

Then she was tackled about the knees, and she went down so hard that her head rang. "No!" she sobbed, fighting in helpless fury.

"Maka," her captor hissed, and she twisted to see Soul, arms wrapped around her legs.

"Let me go! Let me go! I'm not going to hide while they die!" she yowled.

He snarled and yanked on her knees, bringing her further under him, and pinned her arms down even as she moved to strike him. "They won't!" he said passionately. His pupils were so wide that the red was only a thin rim around the edge, and he was so very close that as she looked up at him, his face so near to hers, that she felt like the gates of hell in those eyes would open if she only knew the right thing to say.

She didn't know, though, it was entirely possible that she didn't even know how to speak right now, so she just shook her head wildly and bucked beneath him. He was competent and cool and had the face of a demon as he held her down. "Lord Death's going to take care of them! He's done it before! They'll all be safe, every one of them, I promise!"

"You promise," she spat contemptuously, still struggling. "You promise? I'm supposed to believe your promises?"

He grunted as she nearly pulled a wrist free from his grip, but didn't let up. "I promise that I'm not going to let you die for no reason!" He looked about to say something else, but then he paused and cocked his head. The zigzag smile he showed then wasn't the fresh, rare wonder she'd glimpsed before, nor the tiny unpracticed curl he generally stuck with. It was the rictus cadaver grin of a man who had tasted death and welcomed it with open arms. "It's starting. The storm- come on. Now."

It was an order, he would brook no more of her futile tantrum, so she let him roll off her, haul her up with one big hand wrapped around both wrists. "How can you play such pretty songs with hands this cruel?" she cried out. The tears had started again. She couldn't look at anything but his fallen angel eyes, couldn't turn her face towards the tents, couldn't bear to be alive right now if all her friends were going to die.

He shook her mercilessly. "My songs aren't pretty and if you think they are you're an idiot."

"They are, they're beautiful and that's what I don't understand," she wept.

"Watch," he pleaded, taking her by the shoulders and forcibly swiveling her towards the lights. The monsters were right at the edge of the roughly circular grouping of tents and booths now, cringing and barking as they passed into the light, a cacophonic infernal choir that put a clear quake into Soul's hands where they rested on her. Through the blur of her tears she saw something like a rotting unicorn prance past the mess tent, followed by a hulking spiked thing with far too many limbs. An almost normal woman-shape crept up beside ornate, empty cage where the lions would sit on display, but then she turned slightly, and a tongue curled out of her mouth and writhed down to her knees, barbed and dripping viscous greenish venom. There were so, so many, and yet again Maka surged forward, thinking of Aka's proud dancing loveliness being wiped away, unable to picture him in pain while she stood doing nothing, but Soul was ready, and he held her back.

Then the choir stopped, quit their singing and their steps. She shook as the grass began to whip back and forth, a dark restless sea around her, and the branches of the forest began their own eerie creaking song. A whistling wind rose, very warm, and the tents were flapping so hard she thought they might fly away, the turbulence flinging them back and forth like the wings of great tropical birds. There was a strange humming in her ears.

"Now," Soul whispered hotly, arms still caging her, lips brushing her ear. "Now."

The big silvery skull atop the big top began to spin. As it rotated, the wind whipped up even higher, grew even hotter, and the monsters shifted uneasily in the midst of the storm. Then Lord Death was there, a long black silhouette coiled atop the tent like a gargoyle. His mask was different, somehow, but he was too far away for her to see just why. She knew it was terrible, though, knew it deep down.

"You dare," he boomed. Pale impossible flames bloomed around him. "You dare! Have you forgotten so soon the ringmaster of the Dire Circus?" The silver skull spun, faster and faster, until it seemed that it would shake the big top apart, or fly away with its own momentum, and now the wind was so furious that she could barely keep her eyes open against it as it tore her tears away.

She put her hands over her eyes and squinted through her fingers, desperate not to miss a thing. The beasts were turning back now, trying to forge through the tornado winds, but the air got even hotter, so hot that Maka was sure her skin would blister right off, and Lord Death raised his hands to the sky and howled vengeful laughter as the monsters were ripped apart. The wind caught their blood and painted the tents with it, drenched the field in gore, and then a wet spray of it hit Maka and she fell apart. Only Soul's arms held her together, and only just.

"It's over, it's all right, it's all right, every one is fine," he muffled awkwardly into her hair as she mewled wordlessly into his chest. When she lifted her head to look at him, she fell into painful sobs again, because his hair and his skin were as red as his eyes, and she knew by the way he looked at her that she was painted too.

* * *

Everyone gathered in the big top, slowly, trickling in one by one, with varying expressions of anger or fear or pure nausea on their faces. The little twins were each clinging to one of Kilik's legs as if they would never let go, and Kid was off in a corner rubbing his temples as if his head was aching terribly. Maka fell on Tsubaki when she hopped in, nearly knocking her off her crutches with sheer raging relief.

"I'm so sorry I worried you," Tsubaki whispered, stroking her back. Blair came over and promptly draped herself over both of them, rubbing her cheek against Maka's as if she needed comfort. She was mostly immaculate, just a few spatters of color on her, but her fingers were tipped in red, and, more terrible, a smear of it circled her lush lips. Maka resolved, very firmly, not to think about that too hard.

"You should be," Maka whispered back to Tsubaki. She seemed to be unable to stop her hands from shaking; it was very disconcerting.

"Is everyone else here?" Tsubaki asked. She surveyed the tent with amazing calm, though the mermaid on her arm was sharpening a trident with clear menace, and the tiger was pacing back and forth.

"Yes. I think so," Maka said numbly, releasing the other girls reluctantly. She couldn't quit wiping at herself. It was useless effort; there were layers and layers of scarlet on her and all they did was smear around.

Mira came over, then, and took her arm. "Oh, darling," she murmured sorrowfully, putting a hand on Maka's cheek. "Darling. Let's get you cleaned up." She turned and motioned; the two blonde angels came over, followed by a forlorn-looking Marie, who was wrapped up in Stein's ragged coat.

"Clean," Maka said, with a laugh so bitter that it surprised her. She didn't want to be a jaded person, but she was already a killer, so soon after her second birth, so it didn't seem she had much hope of being anything approaching normal. Her chest hurt from the overwrought poundings of her heart.

Mira sighed. "On the outside," she agreed softly. "There's a river not far and we'll need all the water we can find."

They walked through the trees without fear, Maka with her arm around Tsubaki, lending extra support. She didn't even bother to bring her scythe. There was nothing in the dark left, nothing to hurt them for miles around, not with the ringmaster presiding over his kingdom. The river was more like a creek, a trickle barely five feet wide, and it was icy cold, but none of that mattered. Maka plumped down in it without even taking her clothes off. It gave her such a painful shock that the cotton in her head cleared at last.

"Has Lord Death done that- that thing before?" she asked Tsubaki, who was carefully arranging herself on the bank, trying to keep her cast dry. "Black Star said something that made me think he had."

"Yes," Tsubaki said matter-of-factly, peeling her blouse over her head and wriggling her long skirt down over her hips. There were wings splayed across her diaphragm, under the ripe swinging curves of her breasts, and they changed from brown to deep blue as Maka watched. "He's done it three times before, that I know of, when we've been attacked like that."

"The first time I know of was Black Star's family," Mira put in, naked but for her wrappings. She handed one end of her bandages to Maka and proceeded to spin, rotating around and around with balletic momentum, and her stained wrappings fell away. Maka had never imagined skin so smooth and rich, and Mira's exposed face was astonishingly young, delicately heart-shaped, leaning more towards vibrantly adorable than classically beautiful. There was a thick swerving scar around her upper thigh, like a garter, and it went around the whole circumference of her leg without a break. What had been large enough to take her entire leg into its mouth and bite down? Maka didn't want to know. She looked at all Mira's other scars, the small slashes, the starbursts of some type of burn, and was reminded of lace. They only added to her loveliness. She hoped, very strongly, that those scars weren't the reason Mira wore bandages.

"His family?" Maka asked, teeth beginning to chatter. She kicked her boots off and threw them onto the bank, hoping they wouldn't be too ruined from their immersion. They were the only thing she had left from before, apart from an uncomfortable skirt and a shirt that she didn't much like. The boots, however, she loved, and she would heartily miss them if they fell apart.

"They were very evil, but he was only a toddler, so Lord Death spared him," Mira said, sounding very faraway. "His whole family, every last one of them, did the worst things I've ever heard of."

"Oh," Maka said, an entirely inadequate syllable, but she didn't know what else to say. She finally started to shimmy out of her pants, wincing at the cold. The water rippling downstream from her was flushed with macabre pinkish swirls. She watched Tsubaki in the lantern light, watched her tattoos crying and growling and hiding under their wings, and had to swallow down all the bad things inside her. They formed a hard little knot in her stomach that she suspected might never go away.

"The second time," Marie said, glowing whitely as she stood in the water, "Was when he found Soul."

"Really?" Maka asked, vague interest stirring. "What do you mean, found?"

Marie shrugged, raking fingers through her shining waves. "Nobody really knows, we weren't involved. We only saw the aftermath, and then Soul joined up, that same evening. He was so young, too, poor little bunny."

"It's funny. We passed it after, and I could have sworn it was another circus that got destroyed," Blair interjected idly, looking like a pin-up as she lounged in the inky shallows, licking the blood from her fingers in a way entirely incongruous with her seductive posture. Maka felt dizzy with the knowledge that that woman was her dear friend. What did that make her? "It was still on fire, too, and Lord Death hates fire. He must have really been angry to do that," Blair went on.

"And the third time?" Maka said, fully unclothed now. She laid back on the slick smooth stones of the riverbed, until she was fully submerged, only her face rising from the ripples, and shut her eyes. Being buried in something so transient as water was a comfort. She felt no shame over her nakedness, though perhaps she should- and this morning, she likely would have. She simply didn't have the energy, not after what she'd seen and done. She felt like she wanted to lie here forever, small and ice-cold and finally, finally, without blood on her skin. The other women all around her were just as exposed, but she'd already seen their souls tonight. Breasts and hips were far less revealing.

"The third time was really a day to remember," Mira said, sounding almost fond. "Kami was still with us then, and she was-"

Then she stopped, mid-syllable, to stare at Maka, a dawning light in her wise eyes. Marie stopped to look at her face, then turned to stare at Maka too. She sat up under their combined scrutiny, shivering violently, and looked down at herself, afraid she was wounded. "What?" she asked at last, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.

"Nothing," Marie said smoothly, stepping out of the water, clean once again, gold and white and soft.

"Sorry, I just remembered something," Mira put in, turning away. "Anyway, it was just as wild as tonight was. Worse, maybe."

Maka laid in the arctic water until she couldn't feel much of anything, only rising when Pattie came over and silently tugged on her hand, putting on her stained clothes with a grimace. Pattie helped her button up, since her fingers were numb, and Maka returned the favor; they were both already stiffening from exertion, and Pattie and Liz both had colorful bruises shading their skin, from whatever rumble they'd been in with Kid before leaving Brooklyn.

Maka moved to hand Pattie her gun, which was carefully settled on the ground atop the girl's pink silk stockings, but Liz abruptly stuck out her hand to stop her. "What?" Maka asked, confused.

"Don't touch our guns," Liz drawled before exhaling a puff of smoke nearly into Maka's face. The cigarette in her fingers glowed bright orange as she inhaled, eyeing Maka the whole time, up and down, and it made Maka feel naked all over again.

"Sorry," Maka said, and put her hands up to show she wouldn't. The stinging retort she would normally have dug around for at such unmerited sharpness dissolved away beneath her overwhelming weariness.

"Sissy," Pattie said disapprovingly, scowling. "She didn't know!"

"Well, I'm telling her, you know," Liz said with an arch look, handing her cigarette off to Blair. Her accent gave everything she said a cocky swagger, a kind of verbal aggression that went well with the taunting hardness pasted on her face.

"You're sisters?" Maka said blankly, unable to move beyond that particular fact. She should have known, really. Their eyes were the same, big and ocean blue, and their features spoke to their sisterhood as well. They shared the same pouting lower lip, the perfectly oval faces, and even if Pattie was both bustier and shorter than Liz, they moved their bodies the same way, hard sharp angles, quick turns and straightforward trajectories, leaning into whatever they were doing or talking to. Maka stared at them and felt hot prickling envy lance through the ice still encasing her.

"Yep yep," Pattie said happily, linking her hand with Maka's and bouncing beside her as they all turned to go back, as if they were lifelong friends rather than two people who'd just met under the most horrifying of circumstances. Liz slouched alongside her sister, raking her fingers carefully through her long damp hair, checking her gun now and then with a fingertap that looked like unconscious habit. She looked behind her every few steps, too, and Maka caught the way she wouldn't go further than a few feet from Pattie. It looked like she was on high alert, all the time. It had to be exhausting. Then she noticed that, even as Pattie snapped gum and twinkled at nothing, she tapped her gun too.

"I might have a sister," Maka said dully. "Maybe. I don't know."

Pattie patted her on the head enthusiastically, a bit too hard, even as her innocent eyes went soft with sympathy. "It's okay. If you don't remember her she can't be all that interesting, right?"

That forced a chuckle from Maka. "I suppose," she said, not wanting to go into all the varied reasons that statement hurt her, the foremost of which being that, since her family had apparently forgotten her existence, as evidenced by the drastic lack of any kind of attempt to look for her, perhaps she had been uninteresting and unworthy herself back in her old life. Pattie squeezed her hand a little, holding it like a child would, for direction and support and simply because she was used to it. Maka liked it. Not only was Pattie warm next to her, a wonderful thing after foolishly lying in freezing water in the middle of the cold night, but it was simply, instinctually comforting. She was running low on human contact, mostly out of her own natural inhibitions, true, but it was still wearing on her. She and Tsubaki would hug, Black Star would often sling an arm around her neck, Mira would bump a hip into her conspirationally when they were plotting to steal bandages from under Stein's nose, and Blair was lavish with affectionate nuzzles just as she was with everyone, willing or not, but beyond those glancing touches there was only Maka, in her own little orbit, spinning solo. So she held Pattie's cool hand tight and deliberately allowed herself the indulgence of enjoying it.

They meandered back in the direction of the big top, and as they drew closer, a crackling sound hit her ears. "Fire," she breathed, at first worried, but then she rounded the corner of the massive red and black tent and the delicious heat hit her face, scorching and wonderful. Whatever they'd burned must have been huge, because that was really quite a fire, and it was well away from the canvas, but she still found herself worrying a little. It was just that big.

"Oh, now that is just fantastic," Liz purred, sounding almost sinfully pleased.

"Mmhmm," Tsubaki agreed happily, stumping forward faster on her crutches, managing somehow to make even that jerky movement smooth. Maka let go of Pattie's hand reluctantly as the spritelike blonde skipped after her sister, and her hand felt very cold and empty. She clenched it into a fist so she could pretend she wasn't so alone. The girls made dark shapes as they thawed in front of the bonfire, joined by only Stein and Black Star and Kilik at first, and then a few more, until everyone was around it, hands stretched to the heat just as if there wasn't blood steaming from the ground away all around them, supernaturally fast; Maka could tell it would all be gone by morning and the field would be pure. She could actually see the stains shrinking before her eyes. She watched the dark shapes of her friends, a little ways off from them even though the fire looked like heaven to her goosebump-covered skin, and felt vaguely disturbed. This way, only able to see them all as shadowed silhouettes, they could all have been creeping monsters themselves.

Then long, strong fingers were gently unclenching her fist, filling the emptiness between her fingers, and she turned to see Soul, eyes half-lidded and tired, concerned, and just as warm as the fire as he regarded her silently. Her throat appeared to give up on all sounds under that expression. How could she be so foolish, as to think of herself as alone, when she had Soul and his music to surround her?

"What?" he asked after a moment, turning his face a little to look at her sideways, brows coming together. His fingers twitched in hers, then pulled back. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"No," she said tiredly, holding his hand like it was a lifeline.

He blinked at her, his mild panic fading as he realized she wasn't angry with his touch. "All right." He said nothing else, didn't ask her questions, or ask her how she was. He just let her hang on, and she was grateful. They watched the huddled shadows around the fire, and eventually he noticed her uncontrollable shivering and tugged her forward a bit, until the heat washed over her. She caught Black Star's eyes on their joined hands, those sharp green eyes that never missed a single thing from behind their defensive screen of buffoonery, and she managed to muster up a half-hearted smile for him. He nodded to her, and she knew he was telling her he was proud, which broke her heart. He had no family either, but he'd persevered. She would have to do the same, no matter how it hurt her.

Soul had his head in his free hand and looked exceedingly sleepy. Finally he just sat down and yanked her down next to him. She glared at him but didn't bother with any further punishment. The thought crossed her mind that, despite his tentative, jumpy handling of it, he might be just as starved for touch as she was. Following that came the thought that two people with this kind of electric longing could be very dangerous to each other, especially when one held as many secrets as he did about her, but she ignored that particular idea in favor of continuing to marvel at how hands as rough and average as his looked could create his painfully lovely music. His hands were far from cruel, now, as he sat beside her with the firelight dancing on his sober features. Stein, spitting a few sporadic and rather manic cackles, was passing around a bottle labeled with a massive black 'X', but considering that everyone was taking enthusiastic swigs from it, the contents probably weren't as lethal as the label let on. Kid, sitting primly on the steps of a props wagon, waved it off with something like disdain on his aristocratic features, but Liz nearly tackled Stein to get to it, and she drank for so long that Sid was comically open-mouthed in shock, gaping like a fish out of water, by the time she finished. She just smirked at him and then resumed braiding Pattie's hair.

After a while, Harvar, the ever-silent train conductor who kept all the pieces of machinery alive and the caravan rolling onwards, passed the bottle to Soul, who took his hand from Maka's to drink; the bottle was big enough that he need both of them. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched his throat pulse as he swallowed, and she frowned at the feeling it put in her chest, airy and frantic. She was slumping over to pull her drenched boots off, wanting to nudge them closer to the fire and see if they'd dry, when Soul bumped her shoulder, offering the bottle with raised brows.

She exhaled, took it, sniffed gingerly and nearly fell over. "What is that?" she gasped as her eyes watered.

He snorted. He was more laid back right now than she'd ever seen him, limp and languid. It appeared that standing in a downpour of literal gore was quite a bit more therapeutic for him than it was for her. She attempted to decide if that bothered her, because if probably should, but she couldn't make it matter, try as she might. "Moonshine," he said. "It'll just about melt you, though, so be careful."

She stared at it. Stein, materializing from nowhere as he had such a knack for doing, clapped a hand on her shoulder. She cringed under it as he said acidly, "That's my finest work, bearcat, and it's as illegal as it is a work of art. Appreciate it! It took weeks of experimentation to get that to its full potential." She wondered what exactly he'd put in this foul concoction. Judging by the way his spectacles gleamed at the bottle, he loved it almost as much as he did slicing things up.

"He used that awful stuff to disinfect me earlier, don't listen to him! Art, of all things!" Marie called laughingly from across the fire. Stein straightened abruptly at her giggles and disappeared, probably to either kiss her or kill her for such disrespect.

"He knows my nickname," she said with narrowed eyes to Soul.

"No idea how that happened," he said, with patently false innocence.

She was unimpressed, but that hadn't fazed him yet. "Bottoms up, I suppose," Maka said, tilting the bottle up and forcing a burning bitter swallow down over the hard lump of bad things still painfully thick in her throat, fighting poison with poison.

* * *

He was flying higher with every tiny slide of her fingertips against his hand. If she didn't watch it he'd end up stranded square on the moon. Watching the disgusted choking crinkle of her face as she drank Stein's ferocious bootleg liquor had been hilarious, but watching her nibble on her lower lip as she stared into the firelight and stroked a thumb absently across his own was torture so severe he wouldn't wish it on his worst enemy.

"Butt me," he told Harvar. He needed distraction if he was going to deal with her dreamy eyes and the way her bare feet curled in the grass. Harvar, wearing his dark glasses even now, well past midnight, put a cigarette in his own mouth, lit it with a snap of his fingers, and handed it over without a word of complaint. Maka, drawn out of her reverie by the crack of static, looked over interestedly. Soul caught the flush on her cheeks and wondered, a little uneasily, if she'd had a few too many goes at Stein's bottle. The stuff that madman brewed up could sizzle paint off an automobile. She was tiny, after all, and she'd been matching Tsubaki, who was much larger and yet was currently draped snoring over an overly smug Black Star. He wondered if Maka had drank before joining the circus, but he very much doubted it. She'd been too tightly drawn, too in control, too proper even as she wore dirty work boots and fought him for her horse like a back-alley brawler. The thought made him oddly sad. It appeared the Dire Circus was just as bad an influence on her as it was a saving grace to him.

"How'd you do that?" she asked Harvar, leaning practically over Soul's lap to better talk to the other boy, and yet clearly unaware of the effect she was having on him.

Harvar shrugged. "It's just a thing I can do," he said mildly.

Maka was not put off, and she disentangled her hand unceremoniously from Soul's and nearly clambered over him to snatch up Harvar's hand. Harvar raised a brow, but allowed it with his usual stoic acceptance of strange things. "Do it again," she ordered.

"Watch yourself," Harvar said tolerantly, as he would to an insistent child, and then a tiny golden spark wavered from his palm, spitting and popping, up to the tip of his finger, where it lingered for a moment before going out.

"Oh, that's the best," Maka breathed, eyes huge. "That's amazing." Harvar gave her a little smile and created more sparks for her, letting them spiral and crackle up his hand; she watched intently, with that runaway rabid curiousity. Harvar's reaction wouldn't have been much at all from anybody else, but from someone usually so serious, it was the equivalent of telling her his life story. The mere fact that he'd put on such a show in front of her spoke to the fact that Lord Death had given in, had accepted that she knew how deep in the eerie the circus folk swam. Then again, he could hardly do anything else now, after all she'd seen and done; no doubt he would leave his blunder out of any reports he might send her father. Soul watched her face light up, watched her lips part in wonderment, and then he had to put his head down and grit his teeth to keep from leaping on Harvar and tearing his throat out. The madness gave a great heave as he stole another glance at her, and he had to leave, so fast and frantic that it was nearly a run. He only just heard her startled voice call his name, but all he could see was her lying moaning beneath him as he peeled away her skin, so he kept going until he was at the train cars, moving blindly in the night that had once been so familiar to him, until he could climb up into one and press his cheek into the delicious cool surface of his piano, unpacked and ready to be moved to the big top for showtime.

He was only just getting a handle on himself when he heard steps, loud and clear, accompanied by grumbles and then a muttered, "Horsefeathers," that put his hackles up.

"Do you ever not follow me? Do you not understand that people occasionally enjoy being alone?" he spat when the steps paused outside the train car.

She was not deterred, and as he watched her persevere through several attempts at clambering up into the car without dropping the bottle in her hand, he was mildly amused under his panic. Finally she made it, panting a little, and she thrust the bottle at him. "Here," she proclaimed grandly.

"Don't you want any?"

"No, I'm done. I don't at all like being this fuzzy," she said, asking permission with her eyes before leaning with a sigh against his piano. "What if those things come back?"

Taken aback by the tremor in her words, he looked at her more closely, and under the pink face and slightly hazed eyes, there was still fear, and a lot of it, deep down to her bones. "Are you barefoot?" he said scornfully, desperate to change the subject, still clinging to his piano and uncaring of how undignified he might look.

She turned towards it, bent over and leaned her face on it not far from his, closing her eyes as if it felt good, and he had to leap back. "Yes, so what?" she said peevishly, as if she didn't notice him huddled in the corner growling and fidgeting.

"Get out. Stop touching my piano. God, your skin!" The last was a purely anguished cry. He clamped his jaw shut before he could say anymore.

She turned to him, regarded him shrewdly for a moment, then lifted her hand to her mouth and bit down, hard. He stiffened, the madness flooded his veins in a scalding rush, and he was at her before he knew what he was doing, a hand on the small of her back, dipping her backwards over the keyboard and winding his other hand in her hair, roughly, capturing her. Her blood was there, so close to him, and she was so defenseless right now. She would be slow to react. She might even trust him enough that she'd allow him the first taste, which would make the rest of her that much sweeter as he took her apart piece by piece. He raked his eyes down her as she wilted backwards, took in the color pooling in her cheeks, the green glint of her eyes under lowered lids. He would start with her lips, would bite them just as he'd been craving for so long, and then move to that delicate throat, so unprotected. Then, as she screamed, as her heart pumped vainly and her blood ran out over him, he would move lower-

She reached over and tapped a key, a single note, still holding her other hand before his face, holding that perfect scarlet droplet welling up in front of him like bait. It was going to be delicious. She hit another key and his pulse stuttered; a groan slipped past his lips as he shoved against her harder, rammed her back against the piano and dug his nails into her back, as he bared his teeth slowly, breathing hard, blind with lust and want and murder and sugar-white flesh.

Then, a moment after she hit the third note, a moment before he feasted, there came something cool and deadly against his throat, and even through the madness he stopped.

Her eyes were wide now, and greener than ever as she held the blade to his skin. She had it close, and steady, and he realized she wasn't as drunk as he'd thought. "Bear it," she told him.

He snarled helplessly, lips writhing back from his teeth, trembling from head to toe. "What," he managed through the dark fog. It came out as more of an animal grumble than a proper word, but she understood.

"Bear it," she said again, an imperious order, and she pressed the scarlet drop into his mouth. His teeth closed on her hand instantly, but the pressure of the blade grew before he could dig in, and it stopped him, froze him into raging stasis.

But the blood, right there, so close- he couldn't resist, even if she killed him. Still holding her hand in his teeth like a wolf with a bone, moving nothing but his tongue, he gave in to the black. Her blood tasted just like any other blood, coppery and rich, very warm. He licked it off her hand slowly and thought his knees would give out.

He rumbled wordlessly, still gripping her hips, pressed so close to her that he thought he might die, and still she watched him. She watched him as he lapped at her blood with the tip of his tongue, as he growled and huffed through his nostrils to keep from bringing his jaws crashing down around her delicate hand, as he swayed and quivered from the force of the thing he was fighting. The blade at his throat never wavered, just as strong and sharp as her gaze, and he was just as scared of both.

He couldn't have said how long it took, but finally, she saw something in his face and took the blade away, giving it a fond little smile before setting it on the piano. He snapped his eyes shut, hissed in a startled breath, but he didn't kill her, and another minute went by with no killing, and another, and finally he opened his eyes. "I'm putting you in therapy," she said. It was so dark, and she was so near him. She was so very warm, so soft and plaint as she leant against his piano, tiny bare feet somehow having planted themselves atop his boots, and he was aware that this was some new kind of madness. "We're going to keep doing this," she went on, voice assured. "Eventually you'll get more control and then you won't be afraid to be my friend any more, or to be around everyone. Practice makes perfect." She said it like she was reciting a lesson in class.

He drooped against her, settled his forehead down against her collarbone, and she shifted a little, but she allowed it. "Friends," he said dryly. He held her like this, and she thought that was all he wanted? It was innocence so unbelievable he would never believe it coming from anyone but her, and yet she'd just held a knife to his throat. "You're never going to make sense to me, bearcat."

"I like to keep things interesting," she said lightly.

"Where'd you get a knife?"

"Black Star."

"Oh. Of course."

"It has a name," she mused, plinking another key. "Mae West. He said it's his muse, or something? And then he started laughing and said he really, really hoped we'd get along. He said it was a cherished fantasy of his, which I don't really-"

"Oh my god," Soul choked out, laughing almost silently into her shoulder. He'd laughed more since she'd joined the circus than he had in the all the years before put together.

"What's so funny?" she said indignantly, just as if he hadn't been a breath away from destroying her moments ago.

"Nothing. Never mind."

"Another thing I don't remember," she protested in irritation.

"No, really, don't worry about this one," he said firmly, mirth giving way to comfortable lassitude. He was never, ever going to move, not in a hundred years.

At least that was what he thought, but she only gave him a minute before shoving him away and sliding the knife into her boot, which was already cracking from its unceremonious bath and overly hot drying in front of the fire. "Come on, then," she said snippily, tapping a fingernail on the abandoned bottle and making a face at him. "Back to the party."

"If you ever run out alone into a crowd of monsters like you did earlier I'll kill you myself," he told her.

She paused, shrank into herself, head falling. "I thought that everyone was going to-"

"Die, yes, I heard you then, but what happens to me if you die?" he barked.

"If something like tonight happens again, I'll do what I did! I can't promise you that I'll just let people die! Even if they're not circus, I can't just- I don't want to be that kind of person!" she cried, whirling on him and giving him a ferocious shove in the chest that sent him stumbling back.

He was a second from shouting right back at her, but the frantic wetness in her eyes stopped him. She was an absolute wreck, and how could she not be, after what she'd seen? He was so used to it, had lived the greater part of his life this way, but she had known nothing at all, really, except shifting instability and loneliness, and now she had to balance monsters and danger on top of it all. Yet she still had enough gumption to come to him, to risk her life to help him, only hours after springing into a mess of monsters wailing for the friends she thought were dying. He swallowed, taken aback at his own selfishness. God only knew how much harder his rude attitude had made everything for her, but she'd remained near him in spite of it all. He reached out a hand tremulously, hoping she would read the apology he couldn't quite vocalize on his face, hoping with every piece of him that she would hold his hand again. He was addicted, already, to her touch, and it had happened so fast that his head was spinning from the dissonance of actually wanting a person to touch him, but it was undeniable. She smiled, immediately, a sunrise breaking through cloudy sadness, and linked her fingers with his. He pressed a hand to his chest to contain the overlarge bounds of his heart and promised himself that nothing would ever, ever take her away from him, not Lord Death's machinations or her murky past or the father who'd abandoned her. He would keep her safe, keep those eyes sparkling and keep her hand so trusting in his, no matter what it took.

* * *

FOOTNOTES

1: Bootleg liquor is illegally made alcohol (illegal because of the Prohibition, which encompassed the entire decade of the '20s!) and generally it's very strong and very awful. It can even make you go blind.

2: 'Butt me' is a request for a cigarette. Note: I don't personally enjoy smoking, but it was very widespread back then.

3: 'Bunny' is a sort of common, general pet name. Marie's basically saying 'poor little thing'.

4: Mae West was a sexy actress/singer/comedian/etc who nearly caused riots with her famous innuendoes, such as "Why don't you come up and see me sometime?" She was banned, sued for vulgarity, and even wrote a play about homosexuality! In short, she was awesome and a total bombshell.

* * *

**Author says**: Hi all! So this was planned out to be totally different, but things kind of switched up on me whilst writing it. I did sneak in some more information on Soul's past, though it wasn't as much as I'd planned originally- sorry! Drunken confessions just hit me as too cliche. Anyway, I hope you like, and thankyouthankyouthankyou soso much for all the wonderful reviews!

Also: I got my first fanart, Maka in her performance outfit, by the wonderful **eisschirmchen **over at the Grigori Wings forum! I cannot even say how excited I was, it's beautiful, so thank you eiss! Once I figure out how I'll post a link in my profile. :)


	10. Chapter 10

**Augury **[aw-gy_uh_-ree], _noun_. 1: The art or practice of an augur; divination. 2: an omen, token, or indication.

* * *

He was so deeply, wonderfully asleep that it took a long and unpleasant moment to fumble his way up to anything approaching consciousness, and then another to figure out exactly what it was that had woken him. Whoever was outside his door had to repeat their knocking twice more before he could bully the heavy weight of sleep from his eyes and haul himself upright.

He opened his door to see Tsubaki. The light of the lamp she was holding was stabbing like knives into his eyes, so he squinted and looked down until they could adjust. "What?" he ground out, highly displeased with everything and everyone. No one would leave him alone anymore. He should train one of the dogs to attack anyone who came within twenty feet of his wagon; something, at any rate, had to be done about these intrusions. Maka had set a bad precedent with her constant visits. Just the other day Sid, of all people, had attempted to invite himself in so he could complain about Nygus, as if they were friends or something. Soul liked Sid, as much as he liked anyone, but that didn't change the fact that he'd rather work on a new piano piece for Maka's routine than listen to the man whine about his woman problems.

"Oh, I was just wondering if Maka was here, but obviously she's not," Tsubaki said, a hint of worry in her tone, peering past him into his wagon. The tiger wrapped around her neck was napping; he was severely envious of the thing. "I'm so sorry for waking you up, Soul, I'll go now."

"Wait," he gritted in exasperation, giving up on letting his eyes adjust and simply closing them. He heard the foot of one of her crutches scrape against the ground as she shifted, waiting for him to speak. "All right," he said after a little while, enjoying the knowledge that she was being forced to wait for him. "First, why on earth would you assume Maka sleeps in my wagon? I really, really don't think she'd enjoy knowing you think that. Really, I don't. Secondly, how is it you manage to lose someone so angry and loud so often?"

The noise of shifting crutches came again, and then a soft exhalation and a clank as she set the lantern down on his front step. It took a second before she spoke. "She hasn't been sleeping well. She's just very tired. Sometimes she just falls asleep places without meaning to, lately. I know you two are together often, I just- well, when she didn't show up tonight I decided I'd better find her." Tsubaki's voice was as sweetly dulcet as ever, but worry was clearly written in each anxious word. He cracked his eyes and gave her the best and most intimidating scowl he could come up with, for no other reason than sheer contrariness. She, being well accustomed to his volatile temper, just gave him a gentle little smile and waited patiently as he forced his drowsy brain into higher functioning. Tsubaki really did have the patience of a saint to put up with Black Star, but she had an endless capacity to forgive Soul too, thank goodness. He could count at least three times in the past that he would have bled out if she hadn't been around, watching his back, to play doctor until Stein could tear himself away whatever he was chopping up. Maybe he should attempt to be less abrasive. Maybe.

"She's probably with her horse," he decided after a moment of thought. He'd caught Maka napping on top of the hay at odd hours at least twice in the past few weeks as they camped beside Brooklyn, but it hadn't occurred to him that there was anything really wrong with her. The way Tsubaki was furrowing her brow and biting her lip told him he'd been wrong. Anyway, his own sleeping habits were so confused that he really had nothing to compare Maka's to. "I'll hunt her down."

"Oh, no, Soul, you don't have to do that," Tsubaki protested, lifting a slender hand. "I already woke you up, I'm sorry."

"It's fine," he sighed, waving her off and turning to fumble for his matches and light his own lantern. The sharp smell of sulfur burned his nostrils, unpleasantly, but it drove off a bit more of his drowsiness. "Really. You're crippled. Go back to sleep, I'll find her."

"Are you sure?" she fretted, fiddling with the end of her dark gleaming braid.

"Yes. I'm wide awake now, anyhow." It was mostly true. He shoved his feet into his boots without looking or bothering to lace them up, handed Tsubaki her lantern, and turned to shut his door. She was watching him with a tiny smile when he turned back around, head cocked a bit on the side. "What are you looking at?" he groused.

"You're very quick to leap into action when Maka's involved," she said lightly, lips twitching.

He glared at her again. Hardly anyone was afraid of him anymore. Maka really had ruined his reputation outstandingly. Before he knew it, he would have to start engaging in small talk and friendly chitchat and perhaps even birthday parties. He'd rather die. "You had better watch your gossiping mouth or you'll turn into Blair. Get home, cripple."

"My cast comes off soon and you won't be able to call me that anymore," she laughed cheerfully, stumping off. "Thank you!" she added over her shoulder. She hadn't been fooled by him at all. He watched the swaying glow of her lantern as she left and, when he saw it disappear safely across the field into what must be her trailer, he headed off to the livestock.

Sure enough, there Maka lay, curled up atop a horse blanket and still in her full performance clothing, of all things, a riot of dark orange and purple tonight. It had to be Blair's, judging by the colors and the skimpy bodice; he quite enjoyed the lack of fabric, but preferred the firey little number she had worn the first night she'd ever stepped into the ring. It fit her spirit better. At least she'd long ago lost the bandages; but then, there were now four pink and puckered scars on her shoulder for him to stare at and stew over whenever she performed. For as passionately as the blackness loved her skin, it did seem to approve of those scars, but he hated them. The horses all hung their heads over their fences and looked at him with dark glittering eyes, probably hoping for a second dinner, the greedy things. He threw a vulgar gesture in their general direction. At least when dogs begged, they were up front and honest about it. He took a second look at Maka and frowned. She was in a position that couldn't be comfortable, cherry lipstick smudged a little from sleep in a way that made her look very young. He battled down the clenching hollowness in his chest at the sight of the tiny scabs dotting her fingers and bent down to shake her shoulder.

She leapt up with a yelp, reeling back, nearly toppling into a wheelbarrow until he managed to snag one of her wrists. "Maka, it's me, it's me," he said, blinking at the sheer stark fear on her features. She stilled, shook her head, closing her eyes hard for a second. Her other hand rose and reached for him and he caught that one too, pretending he wasn't absolutely, wildly enamored with the way she instinctively turned to him for comfort.

"Hello," she said after a while, swallowing. There was the imprint of a buckle stamped on her cheek and he fought down a chuckle. "I fell asleep, I suppose."

"Yes you did," he said, scanning her more closely. She was pale as a ghost, with dark shadows under her eyes, clear even under the smeared makeup. Beyond that, she wouldn't meet his gaze, and he discovered that the slim hands he still held were trembling. He turned them over, traced the greenish spiderweb ribbons of the veins on her wrists with a fingertip. She shivered. "Are you all right?" he said, as gently as he could manage. It was foreign and awkward, but then she always seemed to know what he intended, whether or not it came out quite right. He appreciated it; it made conversations with her generally much easier than those he had with anyone else.

"Yes," she said brightly. "It's just tiring, performing, you know? And, um, I like sleeping in the open air-" She waved a hand around her, flashing him a smile that was so patently false he wanted to shake her. Her mask didn't work around him anymore, a fact he tried not to think about, mostly because he was terrified his own was slipping too.

"Don't do that. I know you're lying. You look like death warmed over," he said disapprovingly. He was more angry at himself than at her. He should have noticed something was wrong with her, since the night of the storm and the monsters. Anyway, how could there not be something wrong? He could still feel her shaking in his arms, could still see the way she crumpled as she swiped at the blood caking her face. That night had cracked something in her, and now here he was, playing mother hen. Only for her would he worry this much- only for her was he even capable of this kind of empathy.

She still wouldn't look at him, so he gave her wrist a little squeeze. "Soul, let it go, please," she said wearily.

At least she'd dropped the fake smile. "Your face paint's all smeary," he told her dourly.

She groaned and scrubbed at her mouth, then looked down and raised a brow at her clothing, as if she were surprised to find herself still dressed for the big top. She looked lost and confused and childish, and now her lipstick was all over. He rolled his eyes, pulled his sleeve up over his hand, grabbed her chin to hold her face still, and wiped until it was mostly gone. She looked better without it, anyway.

"Thanks," she whispered, shutting her eyes. "Fine. I'm tired. I'm very tired."

"Hmm," he said judiciously. "Nightmares, then?"

She started and began to twist the hem of her skirt nervously. "How'd you know?"

"I've been doing this a little longer than you," he answered dryly. He didn't tell her that, for days after first meeting her, she'd been a constant figure in his own nightmares, and that he usually woke up in a cold sweat after killing her. Now he dreamed about her blood and her lips and could no longer tell if they were even nightmares at all.

"I keep seeing this man with red hair," she said quietly, turning to lean on the top railing of the fence to her horse's paddock. The thing came right over and put its nose in her hair; she just started scratching its ears. "He's dying. It's the same dream, over and over. Sometimes there are other ones, but it's always that man, too."

She could only mean one thing, and Soul put his face in his hands. He'd seen her father when the man came to see Lord Death, before running off to Paris, and his hair had been as red as anything. If her memories were manifesting so soon, even in such a roundabout way, it meant something was going wrong. Lord Death's hypnosis never failed. To date, Soul was the only person it hadn't worked on, but then Soul wasn't sure he was entirely human anymore. He peeked out from behind his fingers at her, struck again by how very exhausted she looked. It was clear in every drooping line of her body. Guilt washed over him.

"Will they go away?" she asked him wistfully before planting a kiss on her horse's nose.

"I don't know," he said helplessly, shrugging and feeling like a useless idiot. He really didn't know. He didn't know how to help her one bit. They would be moving on soon- after just over three weeks here, the circus had bled Brooklyn dry of profits, and Kid's leg had healed nicely, with his typical unnatural speed- and once they made new camp somewhere else, more monsters would come that needed slaying. There were always more, and perhaps Lord Death's display would keep the worst of them off for a while, but there were always, always more of them. Nonetheless, she couldn't keep this up, but he knew without a doubt that she wouldn't let the others fight without her. She had to find her own balance and all he could do was watch and prepare to catch her if she fell.

"I'm tired," she said again, blindly, sitting down on a bale of hay and slumping forward to rest her head on her knee. She sounded almost drunk from fatigue, a slur lacing her words.

"Come on, I'll walk you back to Tsubaki's," he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her up. She whined a little and then waved to her horse as they left. He put his arm around her shoulders and let her droop against him. "Pick up your feet," he told her, amused.

"No," she grumbled, yawning widely before leaning on him more. He took her weight with a mild growl, but it was instinct rather than actual irritation. It was still a marvel to him, how easy it was to touch her and be touched, a thing that sounded so simple, but it had entirely eluded him all his life. Every time she reached out a hand to him it felt brand new, strangely wonderful, and he found himself waiting for the contact with bated breath whenever they were together. It was almost as precious to him as the moments he was allowed to taste her blood. The darkness gave a little jump at that thought, but nothing he couldn't ignore, and not for the first time he had to bury his faith in her attempts at rehabilitating him. He couldn't bear to believe something so beautiful, not yet.

Eventually they reached the willow and Tsubaki's blue wagon, and he opened the door quietly and delivered her to Tsubaki's waiting arms; he wasn't surprised the tattooed girl was still awake. There was no way she'd be able to rest with her poor darling amnesiac missing somewhere. Maka looked as if she were mostly asleep again already, but as he turned to leave she reached out and wrapped her hand around one of his fingers. "See you tomorrow for the thing?" she mumbled, yawning again, eyes mostly shut.

She was asking if he felt up to fighting the urge to cut her into pieces as she dripped blood into his mouth. He considered, vainly, because even if he said no, she would show up and bully him into it, with that damn knife ready and glinting in her hand. "Yes," he snapped at last, shutting the door firmly on Tsubaki's curious face. The last thing he needed was for Black Star and Tsubaki to learn about this sick game Maka was playing with him. If he didn't even understand it or believe in it, how could they? He looked at the smear of her lipstick on the cuff of his shirt once he was safely back in his wagon again, trying to pretend it didn't look like her blood, wishing that he didn't wish to still be beside her. It took a long time to fall back asleep.

The next morning, just as the sun rose, he rapped on Lord Death's dark door. It opened at once and his master ushered him in; truly, Soul didn't think he ever slept. Never once in all his years with the circus had he ever caught the masked man unaware or unprepared in anyway, no matter the hour. "Hello there, Soul," Lord Death said genially, steepling his gloved fingers and looking just as tall and gawkily macabre as ever. It seemed he had polished his mask recently, judging by the extra shine the bones bore. He'd probably done it to appease Kid's ferocious lust for cleanliness and order. "Would you like some tea, perhaps? It's early yet," he offered pleasantly.

"No, thank you," Soul said curtly. "Maka's having dreams about her father." He threw it out bitterly, like the challenge and the accusation that it was, and watched the mask that he'd never seen removed stare back at him unreadably.

"Well, that's a surprise," Lord Death mused. "Are you certain?"

"Yes I'm certain," Soul barked, crossing his arms. He could feel himself bristling up like an angry cat and had to consciously force himself to subside. "Have you heard anything? How long is this going to go on? What if Albarn dies, eh? Are you going to keep her a prisoner here forever? She's not some tool for you to use! What on earth is keeping them so long in Paris? Why haven't we sent some damn support in yet if it's so bad? The gypsies are practically next door to them!" He sucked in a rough breath after biting his words off, a little taken aback by his own babbling.

"Watch your tone," Lord Death returned sharply. His cloak snaked up angrily, gripping Soul's boots in a hungry sort of fashion. "Would you like to read the reports, then? Do you want that burden?"

His words made Soul stop in mild shock. He opened his mouth to shout yes, but then froze. If he read them, if he was to know what was going on with Maka's father, all the details of the secret rescue the man was attempting across the ocean, he still wouldn't be able to tell her. It would just be more secrets he had to keep from her green searching eyes, more balm for her sorrows that he couldn't give. The silent waiting mask in front of him knew that, knew that this wasn't something Soul could take, and had laid the trap perfectly. "Will you just tell me if the man's ever coming home?" Soul said at last, rubbing his temples and pondering, for possibly the thousandth time, just how and why his life had gotten so damn complicated. "She's falling apart, and now you've got her fighting for you, which I don't think her father would consider very safe."

"It wasn't I who was charged with keeping watch on her," Lord Death returned casually. Soul flinched from that uncomfortable truth. "I'm expecting another telegraph very soon, but as of last reports, both her parents are alive."

"What in the hell is taking so long?" Soul said in exasperation, then raised a hand. "No. Never mind, I don't want to know." He spun on his heel to leave, but Lord Death's astonishingly heavy hand fell on his shoulder, a freezing chill shooting from it straight into Soul's bones.

"I owe Spirit Albarn my son's life and the lives of all those in my circus. It was all I could do, keeping watch on his daughter, and he could do nothing less than try to go save the woman he loves. Try to understand. If anything does happen I'll tell you first. Maka should hear everything from a friend," Lord Death said slowly. His cloak was very still, but the shadows in the corners grew even darker, and for a moment something skittered across the mirror hanging on the backside of the door, too fast to be truly seen.

Soul didn't bother to hide his shiver. It was part true chill, part simple revulsion. "No," he said fiercely, tearing his shoulder away. "You're the one lying to her. You can tell her everything when this all ends." It would end, and he would die if he had to show her all the lies she'd been fed. She would look at him, so betrayed, so hurt, and he would break forever. He stormed out of the wagon, not caring how disrespectful he was being, and ignoring the startled looks the circus folk gave him as he stomped through the tents. He hadn't been this angry in weeks and all the acid secrets were gnawing on his insides.

When he came across a still-tired looking Maka sitting in the mess tent next to Tsubaki, Black Star and Harvar, nursing a cup of something steaming, he couldn't at all decide if he wanted to kiss her or throw her off a cliff. "You are the most bothersome person I've ever met," he seethed, looming over the table. Harvar raised a brow at him over his glasses, and across the tent, the little twins popped their heads up on either side of Kilik and blinked at him somberly.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "I still owe you a black eye, at the least, don't I? Yes. It's too early for you to be mean, Soul, so go away if you're going to be like that."

He stole her cup and sipped as she flailed in protest. "This is terrible," he said scathingly. He wanted to pick a fight more than anything in the world and she was always good for a real knock-down drag-out brawl. It was probably his second favorite thing about her, right after how well she moved to his music.

"Don't drink it then!" she cried angrily. He took another loud slurp, just to irritate her, then gave it back as she waved a fist at him warningly. She proceeded to punch him in the shoulder anyway once her coffee was safe, huddling protectively over it like it was liquid gold.

"I finished Dorian Gray," he lied haughtily.

She gasped as if he'd stabbed her and sloshed some of her coffee over onto the ancient wooden tabletop as she grabbed for his collar, the better to threaten him. "You didn't! How could you? Without me! What happened? No, don't tell me. Wait, yes, god, how could you! I want to know!"

"You talk too much and now you don't get to finish it!" he taunted, slapping her hands away. Nothing got her going like being denied a book; when he was too slow in offering to finish Jane Eyre, she'd bullied him mercilessly until he gave in. It had been a long, bruising few days until he'd figured out what she wanted but was too proud to ask for with words.

She was livid now, clutching her cup so hard he thought it might break as she thundered at him. "You're a beast! Don't think I won't steal it and have Tsubaki read it to me!" Apparently her pride could be ignored in the face of an unfinished story.

"Try it and see what happens!" he threatened. They were both closer to shouting than anything else now and the twins had pulled their caps down over their eyes. Tsubaki kept twitching like she wanted to jump in and force peace and happiness on them all, but she held back. "Anyway, I can ruin the ending for you anytime you start being annoying," he added in caustic satisfaction. She gave a little shriek at such shameless blackmail and started to yank on one of her pigtails before trying to kick him under the table. He watched her face get redder and redder with something near to happiness, because a piece of him knew that even as he infuriated her, she would never truly hurt him, never truly wish him dead or never born, never tell him that he was a freak or an abomination or a monster. It had taken him a while to recognize that fact about their spats, and even longer to figure out how exactly it was that it made him feel; safe.

Black Star shook his head. "You two morons need to get into bed and get it over with. It's embarassing watching you," he said grumpily before diving back into his porridge. Maka went pale and spilled more coffee, and Harvar's brow shot up again.

The white-hot rage that flooded Soul then took him entirely by surprise. He'd been so calm for days that he wasn't prepared, had no time to grab the reins, and before he knew what he was doing, he had Black Star's throat in his hands. For a second, he got lost in the rhythm of his pulse. Black Star cursed raspily, punched him squarely in the cheekbone, Soul released his throat only to throw him bodily over the table and dive after him, and then it was all a blur of fists and snarls and anger. Soul couldn't see anything, he couldn't hear anything but his own irregular pulse, and he knew his teeth were bared because of just how badly they wanted flesh. He wanted to pull out a heart and hold it in his hands, revel in the stuttering final beats of it, wanted to feel something die under his digging clawing fingers, and it was not unlike the way he felt when he sat before his piano.

But then a sound did reach him, a furious sobbing cry, wordless, but familiar, and he paused. A thread of something reached him, and then a little more, and finally he recognized Maka's voice, and then her face in front of him. Another heartbeat, and he realized her hands were in his hair, holding him, and his own were fisted so tightly that he had punctured his palms with his nails. He was sprawled on the ground, a broken plate lying fornornly beside him. It made no sense. Why was he so very hungry?

"What?" he said blankly. Then, "Oh, fuck, Black Star."

"He's fine," she said, sounding very calm, at odds with the heat in her eyes.

"What happened?" He couldn't quite remember. He just recalled anger and a blur of blue hair. He looked over her shoulder and saw the entire tent staring at him, all except for Stein, who was hunched quite placidly over his plate, ignoring the chaos and shoveling toast into his mouth around a cigarette. As Soul watched, the man reached over and slipped a piece of Marie's bread onto his own plate, opportunistic as ever.

"You hit me," Black Star roared from somewhere behind him, and Soul twisted to look at the other boy, who was covered in dirt and possibly eggs, looking absolutely incandescent with fury. Black Star got this angry over only a few things. Either someone had hurt Tsubaki, had told him he was a failure who would never amount to anything, or had attacked unfairly, without warning. Sucker punching Black Star hurt both his dignity and his strangely honorable sense of fair play, and Soul had a sinking feeling that he'd just committed the latter sin. "You hit me, you ungrateful bastard, and then you tried to choke me and I swear to god I'm going to just kill you next time and put you out of your fucking misery-"

Maka's hands left Soul's hair and before he knew what was happening, she had marched over to Black Star and slapped him across the face. She hit so hard that Black Star's head snapped around, and he put a hand up to his reddened cheek, gaping at her. Tsubaki made spastic frantic fluttering motions with her hands over them, looking absolutely horrified and quite near tears, and there wasn't a sound in the tent now except for Maka's shouts.

"He stopped," she snapped, looming over Black Star, who looked quite cowed. "He stopped himself! Didn't you see it? How could you say something that cruel?"

"Oh, Maka," Tsubaki said helplessly, hovering. The fragile blue morning glories twining up her arms were wilting fast.

"He stopped," Maka hissed again, sounding near to tears herself. She shook her head and wheeled around, snatching Soul's arm and pulling him to his feet.

"I don't feel very good," he told her groggily. He felt as if he'd just come to from being knocked out, or perhaps woken up hungover after too much sleep; he couldn't quite get things straightened out in his head past the impression of being wildly angry. The burn of it still sizzled in his veins, an aftershock of pure bloodlust.

"Come on," she commanded, and he followed, rubbing his face, which hurt quite badly.

"I think I bit my tongue," he said slowly.

She kept going and only stopped once they were well away from the mess tent. "Well, you shouldn't have attacked Black Star!" she shouted, and then she hauled off and slapped him too.

"What the hell!" he bellowed, clutching his abused jaw.

She put her hands on her hips and blazed at him. "You attacked him! He's a friend! You don't attack friends! Ever! He's an idiot but he was joking!"

"I didn't mean to! I never mean to do anything!" he screamed back.

"We've been working on this!" she howled, and then she had shoved him back against what he vaguely thought was one of the props wagons, gripping his shirt and shaking him bodily as she ranted and raved.

"But I stopped. You said I stopped," he said blankly as she scolded him, as realization crept through the condensed leftover anger fogging his head.

She exhaled slowly and stepped back, halting her abuse and eyeing him warily. "That's right," she said at last. "You did. It took a moment, but you did."

"It was your voice that brought me back," he said quietly, leaning his head back against the wagon.

She put a hand over her mouth for a moment, the gesture pure frustration, then raked it through her hair, looking fidgety and tired and very put out. "He showed me his scar a while back," she said, motioning to her own neck. "Black Star, I mean."

He had hoped she didn't know. Even after all she'd seen, he had somehow hoped that she didn't know how far gone he was. Then again, only Lord Death really knew. Soul ran his tongue over his teeth at the thought, and for a beat he flashed back to the blackest night, the night he'd burned his way to freedom. "Did he," he said eventually, not knowing what else to say.

"Yes, but Soul, you stopped. You were going to bite him again, I could see it, but you stopped," she said plaintively. "You stopped."

That infant hope blossomed up inside him again at her words, at the fervent ferocious belief shining from her face, and this time he had to work very hard to suppress it. "Really?" he said, and he couldn't hold back his grin. She really had worked quite a transformation on him if he was smiling, here, where anyone could walk by.

"Mmhmm," she said decisively, nodding. "You stopped. You did."

He swept her up in a hug. She squeaked, but then laughed and let him spin her around. The hope was full blown now, bright and hot. "Ah, thank you," he told her, more than a bit awkwardly, when he'd finally come to his senses and set her down, a tad aghast at himself for such a frivolous demonstrative display.

"You're quite welcome," she said archly, smirking.

"How very sweet," someone said coldly. The stink of gunpowder and formaldehyde announced Stein's presence before he even stepped around the corner of the wagon. Soul edged in front of Maka, just slightly, but she threw an elbow into his ribs and put him promptly back into his former spot at her side.

"Hello, Stein," she said mildly.

"Hello, Maka. Did that sleeping draught help at all?"

"Not really," she sighed. Soul blinked at them both, aghast. When in the hell had they gotten so close? Why did Stein know about her troubled sleep when even Soul and Tsubaki hadn't? The world shifted beneath him.

"Mmm. I can adjust the dosage, if you like," Stein said.

"It made me feel nauseous the next day. I don't think it's for me," she said apologetically.

"Ah, well, mandrake can have that effect," Stein said philosophically, leaning on the props wagon beside her and adjusting his glasses with a scarred finger.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" she said curiously. Then her gaze got dangerous. "Are you spying on me again?"

Soul jumped a little at the last word and turned to eviscerate Stein, or possibly set him on fire, but the gray-haired man just gave an icy smirk and pointed behind them both. "Marie informed me we had a visitor on the way. I thought it only polite to welcome her back," he drawled. Soul turned and, for maybe the hundredth time in the past few hours, could only stare.

"Jacqueline," he sputtered. The world tilted further.

The black-haired woman limping up the them from the direction of the main road gave a crimson smile, making the diamonds studding her dimpled cheeks glimmer like fallen stars. "Hello, Eater," she croaked before falling over.

* * *

"So she's who, exactly?" Maka asked again.

Tsubaki lifted a dark brow. "Jacqueline Dupre. She's our connection to France. Well, one of them. I went there several years ago- her troop does the most beautiful act. They dance on silks, in the air, it's amazing," she sighed, looking starstruck.

Maka fidgeted, wrinkled her nose, scraped her boot through some gravel, plucked at a loose thread in her blouse, then darted another glance at Lord Death's wagon, where Soul was currently stowed away with that beautiful glittering woman. He'd swept her up barely a moment after she collapsed and practically ran to the black wagon, had actually touched her, and the look on his face had kept Maka from doing anything but staring after him. He'd looked worried, confused, but also, oddly, something she couldn't help but see as triumphant. "Is she nice?"

Tsubaki hummed a little, sipping her tea, before leaning down to scratch at the edge of her cast. "I wish Stein would come cut this off me already! I think he just thinks it's funny watching me fall so much. And, um, she's not a bad person," she said thoughtfully. "She knows too many things, I think. She's what my mother would have called an old soul."

"Oh," Maka said, ripping more violently at the thread in the vague hope that it might somehow unravel the unpleasant tightness in her throat. "Are she and Soul friends?"

Tsubaki actually laughed at that. "Not at all. She's very-"

Just then Soul came diving out of Lord Death's wagon, pale hair sticking up madly all over the place, and he brushed past Maka and Tsubaki as if he didn't even see them. "Soul?" Tsubaki called, but he just flapped a hand distractedly and broke into a jog, heading in the direction of his trailer. Maka gaped at him, then whirled to stare at the trailer, wishing she could see through the walls to the dark shining girl who'd appeared from nowhere and stolen Soul off without any effort at all. She felt very bad, suddenly, and she wasn't sure why, but in response to the thick tightness gripping her throat, alarm bells inside her head were ringing their doleful warnings from behind the brick wall.

"I have to go," she muttered in response to Tsubaki's gently concerned face, and she turned around and stomped off. She didn't get far before bumping into Mira.

The woman latched onto her elbow instantly, holding her in place. "Maka, doll, you look like you've seen a ghost. What's wrong?"

"Nothing! Nothing. I don't feel well. I'm going to go lie down," Maka lied, reaching blindly for her mask. Judging by the way Mira narrowed her eyes, it didn't work, and she didn't let go.

"Mm. I had something I wanted to give you, actually, come on, I've been putting it off long enough. Won't take but a moment. Come on." Not taking no for an answer, Mira yanked firmly and drug Maka off to the wagon she shared with Sid. It was a dingy green on the outside, and the paint was flaking off in several places, but on the inside there was so much love and so many gleaming weapons that Maka knew the disheveled exterior was always instantly forgotten. Mira disappeared inside, and then popped back out a second later, before Maka could give into her inner turmoil and make good on her escape. Anyway, she did have things to do. They were beginning to close up shop and pack everything away. Even now she could hear the tell-tale whoops of Black Star as he clambered around on the big top, and to her right, she saw the faint golden sparkings of Harvar fine-tuning his machinery.

"I wanted to give this to you," Mira said softly, holding something out. Her nails were pitch black today, with no shine to them at all, and for some reason it made Maka hesitate before she took the well-worn, leather-bound book from the other woman's hands. It was heavy, obviously old, and there was a smell to it, something spicy and warm, and for whatever reason, that smell made her ferociously homesick. How pitiful was it, to be homesick for nothing at all?

"Mira, I can't read," she admitted in despair, staring at it.

Mira's reaction was far out of proportion; she slammed a bandaged fist against the side of her wagon so hard that the whole thing swayed. Sid poked his head out the window warily, but before he could say anything, she growled at him so viciously that he immediately retreated inside. "Are you joking?" Mira demanded.

Maka shook her head. "No. Don't get so sore. It's not as if it matters, does it, for a bally girl?"

Mira saw right through her in an instant. "Don't you lie to me, missy, we both know it matters and I cannot even believe- argh!" She smashed her fist into the wagon again, then spun around and started to pace.

Maka regarded her warily. She'd never seen Mira so overwrought, not about anything, not in the middle of a fight and not when dealing with rowdy patrons. Nothing ever got under the woman's skin, but something about this book and Maka's inability to read it had infuriated her. Maka opened the cover and flipped through the first few pages. It was obviously handwritten, and there were several different colors of ink used, and she recognized some dates here and there heading the pages.

"It's a diary, isn't it?" she said at last, running a finger over the words.

"Yes," Mira sighed. "Yes. Listen, you need to read it, but I don't- god! That got wiped that too? Maka, honey, you need to listen very carefully to what I'm saying. All right?"

"Okay," Maka whispered after a moment. The anger in Mira's dark eyes was putting her on edge. Something was about to happen and she didn't think it would be pleasant.

Mira looked away, lips pressed together, then rested her hands on Maka's shoulders. "Honey, someday you're going to be very angry with me for not reading that diary to you right this moment. I want you to remember, though, that I can't. I'm risking my job here by even giving it to you, and I've got nowhere else to go. Sid and I have been on the run from some very evil people for a long time and Lord Death's the only one who keeps us safe. I can't make him angry. So if anyone asks, ever, you have to say that you don't remember where you got that diary. Understand?"

"I understand," Maka said, confused, clutching the book to her chest. After a moment she slid it down her shirt, because after all, they were in broad daylight and if Mira wanted to be so secretive about this book, she really wasn't going about it with much dedication. Then again, Lord Death was occupied with Jacqueline Dupre right now, so maybe- probably- Mira knew exactly what she was doing. The woman usually did. Then Maka thought more firmly about what Mira had just said and barked indignantly, "And who's after you two, then? You know I'll protect you if I can, if you need any help, ever." She meant it. Mira had stolen a big piece of her heart long ago. How could she not love someone so courageous, so effortlessly strong, so faithful and reassuring? Mira was an anchor for her, almost as much as Soul and Tsubaki had been.

Mira smiled sadly and cupped her face for a moment. "I know. It's a long story."

"I've got time," Maka offered shyly. Tsubaki's voice floated through her mind- telling her that it was never a good idea to ask about the pasts of the circus folk- but Maka was one of them now, wasn't she? This place and all the things it kept buried were all she had ever known.

Mira searched her face for a moment, then twisted her mouth consideringly. "Come on." They settled off under the willow, away from everyone else, beside Tsubaki's empty wagon. The windchimes hanging from it tinkled gently in a warm breeze and Maka tipped her face back to the sun, waiting. It was uncomfortably hot now, high summer, but she preferred it to the dull bleakness of the cold spring days she'd awoken into. Irrationally she felt as if the sunshine could keep her safe, burn away all the bad things. She thought about Soul, about the sheer joy on his face as he throttled Black Star, and then the sun had to dry up the beginnings of tears before they could truly start.

"Sid's younger than I am," Mira started. She spoke slowly at first, a little crinkle between her brows, as if she needed to build momentum before she could really get going. Maka listened patiently. This was a gift she was getting, and she was well aware. She was itching to get away and force someone to read the diary to her, but that could wait. "We grew up together in Haiti." Mira's voice grew more distant, and her eyes even more so. "We fell in love." Her fists clenched into the long grass around her as she tore the old wounds open. "There was a woman who was in love with him too. She got very angry. So she buried him and brought him back and I couldn't stop her." The last words were a wrenching plea, guilt and terror laced through them. It was painful to hear.

Mira stopped there, gnawing on her lip, and Maka took her hand, rubbing the bandages. "I don''t understand," she murmured. "Haiti?"

Mira snorted grimly, but her gaze came back from whatever heartache had spirited it away. "Ah. Island far south. It's a different country."

"You don't have an accent?" Maka asked.

"I worked hard to cover it up," Mira said sadly. "Anyway, we weren't that old, really, and right now I'm older than I look. I've been here nearly twenty years. My accent- it made it too easy for that witch and her familiars to track us. People notice accents, they remember. She buried him and brought him back to be her slave, but I took him, and Lord Death saved him." She hushed out a long, whistling breath. "We've been running for a long time."

Maka thought about that, still petting Mira's trembling hand. Buried, brought back- and then she thought about the faint greenish tinge Sid's skin sometimes took on under dim light, about the way she never saw him eat or drink anything, about way Mira would tap his temple to startle him out of the dull staring silence he sometimes fell into. She thought about how very, very little he had bled when he'd been cut during their fight three weeks ago. "He died," she said dumbly. Impossible things all around her, every day they happened with the Dire Circus, but it was hard to believe that she'd laughed and fought beside a dead man walking. Then again, was there anything more appropriate? She couldn't decide.

"Yes," Mira said simply, endless pain thickening the word.

Maka twisted to look at her better. "And you saved him. She's still after you, that witch?" This time, Mira just nodded. She seemed very drained. "The bandages," Maka said, aghast. "Disguise."

"Partly," Mira murmured. "You've seen my scars."

"Your scars are beautiful," Maka snapped, truthfully, holding tighter to the older woman's hand. Mira didn't look at her, but she gripped back just as firmly. Then she was back to her usual self, businesslike and irreverent, as she stood up and brushed off her trousers.

"Thank you, hon," she said with a wry sideways smile. "Promise me you won't mention where you got that book, not to anyone."

"I promise," Maka said with a swallow. She meant it, but the book suddenly felt hot against her skin, and she couldn't help but wonder. "Is this book that important, that Lord Death would make you leave?"

"Yes, it is. Well, I think so, at any rate," Mira chuckled. "Come on. We've got work to do. We're going to be back on the road by tomorrow, most likely."

Maka tagged along, crossing her arms over the slim book where it rested under her shirt, tucked above the waistband of her trousers. There was only one reason she could come up with that would explain why Lord Death would react so negatively to the thing, and that reason led to another conclusion, unpleasant, but then she'd suspected it all along. "It's about my past, then," she said quietly. Mira gave her a sideways glance that she took as a yes. "Which means Lord Death doesn't want me to know about my past. Which means he's the one who took it from me." It didn't shake her as much as she would have expected, saying it out loud, which only convinced her more strongly that she was right. Living in this strange halfway kind of life, where everyday things were a complete mystery, where people were as unreadable to her as books, she'd become used to trusting her gut, and this revelation felt more like pieces coming together than entirely new things being unveiled. It felt natural, real, and the rage bunching her hands into fists was just as solid, just as quietly lethal.

Mira smiled cheerfully. "What are you talking about again?"

Maka smirked back, and just for fun, she tried to bare her teeth the way Soul did when she got on his nerves. "I have no idea."

"Good girl," Mira said slyly. "Come on, help me pack up the ticket booth." They smiled at each other, and then turned to survey Lord Death's wagon for a moment. Maka admired the fierce fire in Mira's dark eyes, and somehow it soothed the untamed raging blaze flaring up inside her own heart.

* * *

FOOTNOTES

1: Mandrake is a common name for plants in the nightshade family. It's been used historically for many things, but in Stein's case, he used it as a sleep aid. The roots sometimes form humanlike shapes.

2: To 'get sore' is to get angry.

3: A 'bally girl' is a woman/girl who sang, danced, or otherwise performed in the circus shows. They had many duties, from riding the horses to just being all around useful. The term comes from the fact that many actual ballerinas were employed from 1880 to about 1910 in circuses.

* * *

**Author says:** Okay god I haaaate this chapter guys. I'm sorry. I rewrote it about ten times and finally I just gave up and ran with what I finally got. I don't know, I just feel like it's missing something. Anyway, it moved the plot along a bit, and I got to flesh out Mira and Sid, which was fun. I hate time skips but I don't really have a choice- I hate when characters fall in love after knowing each other for like, a month. Thanks for being so patient, and thank you again for all the wonderful reviews/favorites/etc! I read every single one of them and they're all so helpful! :)


	11. Chapter 11

**Evermore** [ev-er-mawr], _adverb. _1: Always; continually; henceforth. 2: At all future times.

* * *

He lurked inside Lord Death's trailer until Jacqueline woke up, ignoring Stein's ill-tempered efforts to bait him into either leaving or starting a fight. When she finally did, cresting gracefully out of sleep like a dolphin on a wave, Soul was right there, elbow to chilly elbow with his Lord as they both bent over her.

She blinked, then coughed softly. "Stein, can you put that out, please?" she said hoarsely, waving a hand through the gray smoke swirling in the dead air. The man just grunted, flapped a hand dramatically, and left.

"You were dehydrated and exhausted," Lord Death informed her. "You need rest."

Jacqueline rolled her eyes and sat up from cushions they'd placed on the floor for her. "I don't have time for rest. The fates led me here and they had even less mercy than usual."

Lord Death tilted his mask, tapping one finger on his elbow consideringly. "The summer solstice, then. Has to be, this time of year," he said with a sigh.

"Yes, I think so, but we'll see. Among other things." She yawned and stretched like a cat, then peered at Soul as he stood gnawing distractedly on his nails. "Huh."

"What?" he barked, skin crawling.

She lifted an eyebrow and raised a hip, pointing to the indigo leather pouch strapped over her skirts. It was rattling. "The cards have something to say to you, Eater."

Goosebumps rose up over every inch of him, but there was no time for any of this. He had to know if Jacqueline was here to tell Maka everything, to take her away from him or to ruin her life with bad news. Selfish paralyzing fear made him stutter when he snapped, "Later. We need to know how the Albarns are doing."

Sharp black eyes stared at him keenly. For once, she appeared to be firmly in the present. Her gaze was clearly on him, rather than focused mistily off over his shoulder or up at the sky. "The Albarns?" Then she swiveled back to Lord Death, peering up at him with a mild scowl. "Why in the world does he assume I know what those two are up to? Isn't Spirit retired now, anyway?" Soul's heart sank bitterly. He'd assumed when he'd seen her that she'd been sent from her native France with an update, and he'd been desperate, both to keep Maka from hearing possible poor news, and to find out for himself how much longer he might have with his bearcat. Obviously it had been a foolish hope, though. He sneered at his shoes and wondered if maybe he was worse than he thought, for being so greedy with a girl so confused and alone. The thought didn't change his wish for things to stay the same, even though he knew it wouldn't last forever.

"Soul," Lord Death began, a heavy displeased rumble in his voice, but then he puffed out an irritated breath and said, "Kami resurfaced in France about, ah, two and a half months ago. She ran into some heavy trouble and Spirit took off to rescue her. They've been essentially trapped behind enemy lines for a while now. Working with the monks in St. Cross, I believe, and a few Transylvanians who were passing through. Kami's been enjoying it, probably, wreaking mayhem everywhere from what I hear, but I doubt Spirit's too happy. Anyway," he lifted his gloved hands in a shrug, "They're in France still." Something about the tense squareness of his shoulders suggested that he very much wished for all of this to be over, and for a moment Soul suprised himself by feeling pity.

"Where's the little one? Didn't they have a baby?" Jacqueline said idly, stroking her quivering leather pouch like it was a beloved pet. It clattered like a rattlesnake tail in response.

"You've got your predictions crossed again," Lord Death said gently. "Maka's seventeen now."

Soul started. She was seventeen? Somehow he'd thought her older. She was so strong. Then he thought about the way she had cried against him during the bloody storm and he wasn't so surprised. Every new fact he learned about Maka tattooed her more firmly onto his spirit even as it made the weight of his secrets more daunting. Anyway, her age didn't matter to him. "I have to go," he muttered.

Jacqueline lunged forward and latched onto his ankle with startling strength. "Oh no," she breathed, eyeing him as if he were either salvation or dessert. The rings loading down her fingers started to glint shiftily, a dark jeweled rainbow that made him shiver and seriously wish she would let go. "The fates drove me here for you and the golden one."

Fuck. "Maka?" he said dubiously.

Jacqueline let out a shuddering breath and closed her lids, face lifting as if the sun were there to shine on it. The cards in her hip pouch began to shiver so hard that the thing sounded like an angry beehive. "Yes. Bring her to me."

"I can't if you don't let me go," he said in mild panic. She did so and he flung the door open. "Explain stuff to her, okay?" he told Lord Death before plunging into the untainted sunlight and breathing a gigantic sigh of relief.

He did a full circle, looking, even as he wondered why his stomach felt tied in knots. Jacqueline and her fortune-telling had saved the lives of everyone in the circus at one point or another, but she'd also, in a particularly galling display of coldness, told Marie that she would lose her first child and informed Stein that he was going to kill himself one day. The things she saw and spoke were far heavier than her delicate midnight youth would ever suggest. Of course, the future was misty and human words were entirely inadequate to contain it; Soul and Black Star had a bet that Stein would live to a crotchey ninety years old and die from his cigarettes, a death that would technically be at his own hands.

Jacqueline had said other, even worse things, spilling the terrible future with her characteristic distant chill, but no one talked about those predictions. Instead they buried them, deep down, and tried like hell to either live in denial or change them. It never worked, but still they tried.

He figured out, with vague surprise, that that was probably the core of the fear chewing him up from the inside out. He was scared of what could have run Jacqueline so ragged, of what hideous future could involve both himself and Maka. What could it be, so awful and important, so impatient to be heard? And Lord Death had immediately jumped to the solstice- the circus usually laid low on dates with such power. The effects of times like Halloween or Beltane couldn't be predicted with any clarity, not when evil warped its servants into so many different forms.

At least the past was as dim to Jacqueline as the future was to everyone else. It would be real trouble for him if she, one of the very few people to know where he'd gotten his teeth, were to entirely remember it. He shook his head roughly and kept hunting. Finally he saw Maka, carrying a piece of the ticket booth over her shoulder and looking rather out of sorts. "Hey. Maka. Maka!" He trotted towards her.

Her eyes widened as she turned to him and she dropped the lumber instantly. "What's wrong? Is you- um- is that girl all right?"

He must have sounded far more shook up than he'd intended if she reacted with such worry. "She's fine, but she wants to talk to you."

Maka looked confused. "What? Me? Why? I don't even know her."

Soul bit the inside of his cheek, wishing he could just scoop her up and run from whatever bad things were nipping at Jacqueline's heels. He reached out and took her hand, more for his sake than hers, and ran a finger across her knuckles while thinking of the best way to inform her that a universally dreaded fortune-teller had run herself into the ground under the weight of a prediction about Maka. Maka just watched him and waited, and after a moment she stepped a little closer, looking up at him.

He turned her hand over in his and peered at her palm, trying to read the secrets written in the lines, as Jacqueline could do at a glance with her infinite stare. Maka's hands were small, well-formed, with fingers neither long nor short. There were little callouses built up here and there, and a tiny papercut just below her index finger. They were a working woman's hands, and they had already had blood on them, friendly and otherwise. He tried desperately to read anything but the present in them, but he couldn't, not until he looked at the fragile dark scabs clinging to her fingertips, where she'd torn her velvet skin just to bleed for him.

Then he realized, and it hit him like one of Marie's hammerblows. He practically threw her hand at her and reeled backwards, covering his mouth. Maka followed, brow furrowed, green eyes large and concerned. "Soul?" she said, and the sweet worry cracked him a little more. She had shed blood for him already, but only hours ago he'd flung himself like a mad animal at the nearest thing he had in the world to a brother. It wasn't working. Her therapy had failed, hadn't it? That had to be it, the dark future Jacqueline had come to share.

"I'm going to kill you," he said from behind his fingers.

She caught the terrified inflection of his voice and her outstretched hand froze in place. He wasn't idly threatening, or teasing in mock irritation, and the realization of it stole all the color from her cheeks. "No you're not," she whispered dumbly. "You won't. We're- no. What are you saying?"

"Fuck," he burst out, railing at the astonishing cruelty of his own thoughts. "I don't know." He really didn't. He had a hunch, but only Jacqueline, with her eyes that saw through the present and lit the dark murk of the unformed future, could tell them for sure. "I don't know," he said again, honestly, and he snatched her up and clung to her in fear. She gave a muffled whine into his shoulder, but he didn't let her go until his heart had somewhat stopped its runaway gallop. Suddenly she seemed very precious to him, a small blonde miracle, and he pressed his face into her hair and allowed himself to be greedy and selfish and possessive, just for a moment, because didn't he deserve at least once good thing in his short terrible life?

When he did release her, she kept her hands flat to his chest, and her eyes there as well, still frowning a little, lips firmed in the way that meant she was thinking hard about something very important. "I have a favor to ask you later," she said, sounding quite calm.

"Anything." God, he hoped he wasn't blushing like a schoolboy.

She gave a small half smile at that and tapped a fingertip against his collarbone. It resonated in him like a gong and he swallowed hard. "Thank you. Come on, then, let's go see this Jacqueline woman," she said.

They went slowly and he kept her hand in his the entire way, uncaring of the ear-shattering squeal Blair gave off in the distance when she saw them. When they sidled into Lord Death's dark trailer, Jacqueline was sitting cross-legged on the floor, wide violet skirts spread out all around her, the smooth petals of a carrion flower. Her face lit and twisted when she saw Maka, predatory and fierce. Soul put himself firmly in front of Maka and looked to Lord Death for guidance, an old habit, and one that he fell back into easily despite the uncomfortable anger he'd felt toward the man lately.

Lord Death was slouched against his wall, and his cloak was drooping and motionless. "Go on," he said after a moment, waving Soul and Maka forward. "If the fates have a message for you, refusing to listen will do far more harm than good."

"You'd know, would you?" Soul said bitterly as Maka's hand tightened in his.

"I would, actually," Lord Death returned easily.

"What's going on?" Maka ventured, rather squeakily.

Jacqueline patted the floor in front of her, the diamonds in her cheeks shining unnaturally brightly. "I'm going to tell your fortune, golden girl. I've come a long way for this."

Maka didn't move a muscle until Soul sat down and tugged carefully on her hand, and then she came to life and copied him jerkily. Lord Death covered his bowed mask with a large hand and looked away.

"Close the window, please," Jacqueline said softly. Lord Death did so, and in the nearly complete shadows Jacqueline opened her little leather pouch and pulled out a deck of trembling cards. They shone like a full moon, giving off a wash of pale light that accentuated the clench of Maka's jaw and the wild dilation of her eyes.

"What are you doing?" she said, a little angrily, as Jacqueline crooned wordlessly to her cards.

The other girl smile sideways. "I've been sent here to tell you something. We'll find out in a moment."

Maka snorted, but fell silent after that, watching as Jacqueline shuffled her gently glowing deck of cards. After a moment, she cut the deck and tucked nearly three-quarters of the stack back into her pouch. They were silent this time, though the ones remaining in her hand still gave a little hum now and then. "The major arcana," she whispered, pulling her crimson lower lip between her teeth. Her hair fell around her like a mourning veil as she leaned forward, setting the smaller stack down softly on the floorboards. Their glow started to pulse like a heartbeat.

"I don't want to do this," Maka said suddenly, leaning backwards.

Jacqueline looked up at the other girl and said sadly, "You don't really have a choice."

Maka blinked and Soul felt her hand tighten almost painfully on his own. "My legs work just fine. I'm perfectly capable of walking out," she said sharply.

Jacqueline just watched her calmly. "But you're not, are you? You want to know. They always want to know."

Maka's mouth twisted. Then she stood up defiantly.

"Wait," Soul said frantically as she put her hand on the doorknob. She looked down at him, almost pleading, but the glow of the cards was harsh in his eyes and the distant hope of being able to stop lying to her was stronger than his fear. He didn't even really know what he wanted anymore, if he wanted nothing to change or everything to change, but maybe Jacqueline could help and Maka could stop hurting. "Please. I- I need to stay for this," he told her, staring at her knees so he wouldn't have to watch her anguished face.

"You owe me," she sighed a moment later, dropping back down beside him. This time, she was the one who took his hand.

"I need you," he corrected numbly. Her swallow was audible, and Lord Death shifted noticeably, but Soul didn't care. Whatever was coming for him, he couldn't do it alone, not anymore, not after having finally found out how it felt to lean on someone else. A few months ago, he would have named that as weakness, but he had a funny feeling Maka would call it strength.

"Let's get on with this nonsense," she said imperiously, back stiff and straight.

Jacqueline smiled placidly. "All right, then." She pointed to them both, the rings on her fingers casting more pronounced light now, painting the walls with multicolored shadows. It felt as if they were living in stained glass. "We're going to have to do this a little unusually, I think, but the fates shouldn't mind. Goodness knows neither of you have followed much of a traditional path anyway," Jacqueline sighed. "Both of you, together, with your left hands. Choose a card."

"Left?" Maka mumbled as Jacqueline spread the cards out facedown with a deft flick of her wrist. They scattered like ash in a perfect fan shape, still shining.

"It's the hand of the heart," Jacqueline told her. She folded her own shining hands delicately in her lap and waited, looking for all the world as if could sit there forever. Perhaps she could, Soul thought. Time had never been an entirely concrete thing for Jacqueline.

He looked at Maka, then down at their linked hands; their left hands. She was scowling at nothing and picking resentfully at a piece of mud crusted onto her boots. Suddenly he felt horribly guilty. "Maka, we don't have to do this. You don't have to." He shot Jacqueline a glare. She beamed at him sunnily. "Sometimes her predictions are- well, they're bad news, and if she came all this way-"

Maka shook her head firmly. "If you need to do this then I'll stay," she said simply.

He closed his eyes tightly against the rush of affection her words sparked. He didn't deserve her. Even now, behind his shut eyelids, he could picture the scars on her shoulder, every ragged tender angle of them. He didn't deserve her friendship. If she truly knew what he was, if she really understood, she would run.

"Death, reversed," Jacqueline said, sounding entirely unsurprised, and Soul's eyes snapped open in horror. There, in his and Maka's hands, lay a card bearing a shimmering skull, so bright that it lit up the entire trailer with thick eerie silver.

The air in his lungs turned to mud. "When- how-"

Maka appeared similarly confused. "I don't know," she hissed, staring at the card. "I was just thinking and then it was there!"

"You chose your question, then," Jacqueline said. Her voice was calm, but the diamonds piercing her smooth cheeks were putting off a malevolent light now that punctuated her every word severely. She took the card from them and set it down on the floorboards. No matter where Soul leaned, the skull watched him, and suddenly he was beginning to really regret agreeing to this. He should have known, but the fear of hurting Maka had held him hostage as effectively as shackles.

"I chose no such thing," Maka argued, but Jacqueline just proffered the shuffled cards again, that reptilian smile still curving her painted lips.

"Choose."

"That one," Soul said angrily, pointing with their conjoined hands.

"Aren't we supposed to do it together?" Maka said irritably. He caught the undertone of apprehension in her voice, though, and he didn't miss the way her eyes kept drifting down to that staring star-bright skull.

"It'll do," Jacqueline answered smoothly. She plucked their card from among the rest and turned it over, placing it to the side and slightly below the death card. "Ah. For the benefits, it's the fool. How curious," she chortled, stroking it fondly with a fingertip before holding up the shuffled fan of cards. "Again."

Soul growled and Maka made a hesitant angry sort of whine in the back of her throat, but then she lifted their hands again and pointed, face set in an uncomfortable grimace. Soul leaned into with his shoulder, wishing there weren't currently two skulls watching them both like hawks- Lord Death was hovering over the entire little tableau with unnerving intensity, and the death card was still glimmering malevolently.

"Judgement, for your obstacles," Jacqueline said quietly, setting their third card down parallel to the Fool. "Again."

Maka hung her head and resumed picking at the mud on her boots. Soul frowned at her, aware that his heart was working overtime. He'd seen Jacqueline do enough readings; this would be their final card, and he didn't even know what the damn question was yet, but this entire thing could go very badly for him.

Maka lifted her head under the weight of his gaze and gave a muted smile that put his stomach into somersaults. She seemed to read some of the turmoil inside him, because she squeezed his hand and leaned in close, so close that he could feel her warm breath on his cheek and her lips brushing his ear when she whispered, so quietly that for a moment he thought he was dreaming, "I know who's to blame for my memory. I won't be angry at you."

Then she pulled away and regarded him, still with that crooked half-smile. Her eyes were opalescent in the light from Jacqueline's gemstones, catching and pulling all the color from the trailer and multiplying it. They looked like the ocean, blues and greens and purples shining at him devotedly, so warm and sweet that he was entirely unable to tear his gaze away from hers. He said, past his suddenly dry tongue, "All right," and pointed without looking.

"Justice is your answer," Jacqueline said fervently, setting it down beneath all the other cards, completing the diamond shape.

No one said anything for a long, airless moment, until finally Lord Death asked, "Well, go on, explain it to them before they faint." Maka started so badly that Soul suspected she'd forgotten Lord Death was there. He could understand that. This whole thing had him so on edge that he could hardly remember his own name at the moment.

Jacqueline gave a long, shuddering sigh, lacing her bejeweled fingers together with a clank. "Death, your question," she began. "Dying is inevitable. It's a monumental change that ripples out to affect every drop of water in the pond. What were you thinking of, Eater, golden girl, when you chose the card?"

Soul looked down, showing all his teeth to nobody in particular out of sheer frustration, then rumbled, "I was thinking that I'm lucky Maka doesn't know the whole truth about me." It felt like he'd just torn off all his skin, saying something so openly, but he gritted his teeth and pushed past it.

Maka squinted at him with those aurora eyes and he quickly returned his gaze to the floor. "I was thinking that I wish I knew more. I'm- afraid of all the things I don't know. About everything," she said tonelessly.

"Ah," Jacqueline said simply.

"That doesn't- those aren't even questions," Maka burst out. Her hand was hot and fitful in Soul's as she shifted around.

"Let me shine a little light on it for you then, golden girl," Jacqueline said dryly. "The question is Soul's past and how it relates to your future together. One of you was looking to the years gone by, one to the things yet to be known." She frowned down at the grinning skull, then tapped the red sun rising fron the background of the card. "This sun- it shows new beginnings, but also speaks to the summer solstice. It's coming soon and you two are going to be deep in the thick of it."

"The thick of what?" Soul said harshly. The shine of her rings was irritating his eyes. It made everything seem indistinct around the edges in a very disorienting way.

"It's the longest day of the year. It's not the day time need to worry about, though." She settled a fingertip on the dark rim of black sky surrounding the rising scarlet sun. "It's midsummer's night. Things go mad then." She ran a nail across the terrible smiling teeth of the skull like she loved it. "Evil abounds."

Maka shivered, but Soul saw her set her shoulders and lift her chin staunchly, all bravado and courage, as much as she could muster, and the way she gripped tight to his hand told him that she was doing it partly for him. "We can handle evil. All kinds, we can take it together."

She wasn't only talking about monsters. He looked again at the scabs on her fingers and the violence of her faith shook him. "Right," he said to himself. "So that's the question, apparently, thought I don't remember asking it."

"Don't be glib to the fates," Lord Death put in. "Come on, then, what's next? The suspense is killing me."

Jacqueline turned her attention to the card of judgement. "Your obstacles. Don't flinch so, Eater, this card isn't about negativity. It's not about the way the world might see a thing." She framed the gleaming golden scales with both her hands, then pointed to the gory heart sitting in one cup. "It's about the way we judge ourselves."

Well, that was clear enough. It underlined the guilt that ate away at him every day for all his lies. "Oh," was all he said.

"Don't forget the feather," she intoned. Balancing out the bloody shredded heart on the other half of the scale was a single, pure white feather. He looked closer and barely stifled a gasp, because the thing was tipped with precise brushstrokes of gold and green. Jacqueline smiled like a demon at him when he glanced up, looking terribly amused. He took another look at the feather and winced. A single drop of blood was staining it.

"Get on with it," he said shortly. If Maka appeared on the obstacles card, that was just as clear a message as that of guilt.

"In the place of chance and benefit, you both put the fool," Jacqueline said. Her hands hovered over the handsome young man's face, but she didn't touch the card. "Notice that he looks forward at the heavens as he walks, not backwards, and pays no attention to the dangers on the ground." Sure enough, there was a snake lurking in the bushes as the smiling youth strode forward.

"Blind faith," Maka said suddenly, as if something awful had just occurred to her. "Isn't that a bad thing?"

"You of all people should know that it can be both. It depends on what you make of it," Jacqueline answered mildly.

"You need to talk straight," Soul grumbled.

"Fine," the fortune teller said brusquely. "The fool. He notices nothing but what his heart has been set on. He looks only forward, to the future, and he ignores the black past behind him. He has overcome worry, he doesn't live on the path he's already walked."

"He's overcome it," Maka breathed delicately. One hand rose to settle over her mouth.

Soul made a face. "I don't understand."

"That's okay," Maka said, obviously far more enlightened than he was. "I do."

Jacqueline chuckled melodically. "Notice the white rose that he lifts to his nose, golden girl."

Maka leaned forward to peer down at the card, lower lip caught between her teeth, then said slowly, "I see all the thorns. But he- ah- it's the goal?"

"Very good," Jacqueline said approvingly.

"We can't forget the thorns," Maka told Soul, as if that were somehow supposed to make sense to him.

"Sure. Of course. The thorns!" he said, throwing up his free hand in despair. "Tell us the answer. If there's something bad coming at midsummer we need to know how to fight it. I don't need a reason to kill things." He said it as brutally as he could. Maka twitched a little, but she didn't pull away.

"The answer," Jacqueline parroted, tapping her chin with a long finger. Her eyes didn't reflect the colorful light light Maka's did, Soul noticed. Instead they drank it in and drowned it. "Justice. See her crown, how sharp and deadly it is, how heavy a burden it is to carry."

"It has dead flowers on it," Maka said softly. "Death- the answer is killing?"

"Never could have figured that one out," Soul said under his breath.

"That's part of it," Jacqueline said, ignoring him haughtily. "She carries a scale, as well, like judgement, but this one is empty. She holds it forward proudly, but her face is sad."

"She's crying," Maka said thickly.

"So are you," answered Jacqueline.

Soul jumped and turned to Maka, who was indeed crying, tiny tears slipping down her cheeks. One lingered there, like Jacqueline's diamonds, and he brushed it away quickly. "Why are you crying?" he said, feeling unutterably helpless and quite possibly more confused than ever.

"She has a decision to make and it's breaking her heart," Maka said, closing her eyes as she cried. "A decision about- she's got a sword, look, and she has to decide- and look at all the road behind her, she's come so far but people are in danger, look at the trampled flowers in the corner-"

"That's enough," Lord Death said suddenly. His voice boomed out like a foghorn in the tiny trailer and everyone, even Jacqueline, started. "I think I understand why the fates brought you here," he said, and for a moment the endless eyeholes of his mask lingered on Soul, who felt very cold until they turned away. "Maka, dear, get some rest and then come speak to me tomorrow, please. We have rather a lot to discuss. I'll make tea."

"We've got a month till midsummer's eve," Jacqueline said, gathering her cards up carefully and tucking them in her pouch. Her rings fell dormant as she did so, and without all the chaotic light she'd been putting off, the trailer was nearly pitch black.

"We'll be ready, thanks to you," Lord Death said, bowing a little. Jacqueline managed a sort of curtsey from her position on the floor, and suddenly she looked very tired.

"Let's go," Maka implored, yanking on Soul's hand as she stood up. She looked just as exhausted, weepy and red and upset. He opened the door for them silently and blinked, because outside was nothing but nighttime blackness, broken only by soft chirping crickets and a gentle wind. There was no way they'd sat in that wagon for more than an hour, and it had been high noon when they entered, but here it was, well into night. He bit his lip and wondered just how many more nights he had left in him. A small smothered piece of himself would have bet everything he owned just then on a month's worth.

"Eater," Jacqueline said from behind him. He turned to see her positively drooping from exhaustion, dull and pale. "The fool- his white dog walks beside him. Dogs stand for honesty. They bark at everything, their mouths are always open."

"I'll keep that in mind, you pushy interfering woman," he said sourly. She smiled redly and then Lord Death closed the door.

* * *

Maka braided, brushed out, and re-braided Aka's mane and tail three times before she managed to regain any semblance of calm. He appeared quite happy with all the attention, and for a moment, as she breathed the sweet alfalfa scent of his silky nose, the urge to ride away forever was almost too strong to take. She wasn't helpless anymore, as she'd been when she'd woken up nameless in Tsubaki's wagon. She knew how things worked now. She had skills. She could handle herself, but the problem was, she'd known for weeks now that Soul couldn't manage alone, and now Jacqueline and her damn sparkly light show had written the problem out clear as day.

She poured a few tears into Aka's dark red mane at the thought. A month, that was it, and they had so much work left to do. She tried very hard not to think about his hands on Black Star's throat, but it was useless.

"Hello," came a voice from behind her.

Maka turned her face to see Tsubaki, crutchless for the first time in weeks, standing carefully on her newly freed ankle. Her tattoos all looked happy with the development; the blazing tiger was grooming a paw placidly on her forearm, and the mermaid was singing silently as she brushed her hair. "Hello," Maka sighed, looking away and discreetly brushing away the last traces of her tears.

Tsubaki obviously wasn't fooled, though. She came over and stuck her fingers in Aka's mouth, rubbing his gums and giggling softly as his lips went loose and floppy in bliss. "So what awful thing did she lay on you two?"

Maka blinked at her. "How'd you know?"

Tsubaki just shrugged and moved her ministrations from Aka's mouth to between his ears. "Well, I don't think she's once given anyone good news, really. If she came this far so fast that she fainted, it had to be something big."

Maka reflected on that silently for a moment. She hadn't been told by anybody not to share Jacqueline's predictions, after all, and she absolutely had to talk to someone or she would explode like Stein from his cannon. She couldn't talk to Soul- she could hardly handle looking at him, she'd positively fled after they'd left Lord Death's wagon- and Tsubaki's gentle, concerned face was too tempting.

"I don't really think Soul understood it all, but there's some very bad stuff coming on midsummer's eve," she said quietly, beginning to braid Aka's tail once again, just so her hands were busy. "There are two choices. Either things will work out and Soul will get better-" Tsubaki gasped softly at this, a graceful hand rising to her mouth- "Or things go very bad and people get hurt and I'll have to decide if he lives or dies." It came out in a terrible rush and Maka had to close her eyes tight to withstand the heartbreaking force of it.

"You've got to be wrong," Tsubaki said after a moment. "That's far too clear to be one of Jacqueline's predictions. Which arcana did she use? Which spread? Because sometimes she gets too ambitious and things get complicated and-"

"Just four cards. Uh, major arcana," Maka said dully.

Tsubaki's lips thinned and her dark blue eyes grew wide. "Oh, no, oh no! Maka, listen, Black Star and I will be right by your side, no matter what happens at midsummer, all right? We'll help you and Soul. You don't have to carry this alone." She said it with ferocious conviction and Maka was reminded suddenly of how terrible Tsubaki could be when those she loved were threatened.

"I used to think that I'd been cursed, waking up with no memories, but I'm really glad I met you," she choked out, feeling rather silly and saccharine, but the way Tsubaki's face lit up made it all worth it. A peacock started a prancing little dance on her neck, tail flaring out. It was beautiful, but it reminded Maka so much of the swirling glow of Jacqueline's gemstones that she had to glance away.

"I'm really glad I met you too," Tsubaki said, putting a hand on Maka's shoulder. "I'm sure you're mistaken, though. Soul's been doing so much better since he met you! He's like a different person."

"I'm not mistaken," Maka said. "I wish I was but I know I'm not." She did know. She'd felt it somewhere deep down when she looked at the shining skull of death and the blithely unaware face of the fool.

Tsubaki took her confidence at face value, giving a sigh and pulling a few loose hairs from Aka's mane, seemingly without realizing it. She wound them around and around her fingers as she frowned at the ground.

"Is he really that much better?" Maka asked as she finished her braid.

Tsubaki nodded absently, forehead crinkled in thought. " A thousand times better. I know he's had a few little episodes, you know, like this morning, but he truly is acting a lot more civilized."

That put a warm glow in Maka's chest and she was awfully afraid her cheeks were red, but it passed when she thought again about the lady justice and her ominous empty scales. "Oh. That's good."

Tsubaki twisted Aka's hairs around her fingers one final time, then let them settle down to the ground. "Yes. Maka, there's a month until midsummer's eve, isn't there?"

"That's what Lord Death said." A hint of the bitter burning fury Maka was feeling toward that particular man crept into her voice, and the hidden diary seemed to mock her from its position under her saddle blanket in the corner. She wanted desperately to know what it said, but she surely wasn't about to go ask Soul to read it to her, not when she knew just the sound of his voice would send her to her knees. Anyway, she'd figured out what was important- who was behind her memory loss. She could find out why exactly Lord Death had done it to her tomorrow when she went to talk to him.

"A month is a good stretch of time," Tsubaki said thoughtfully, running her fingers through her long unbound hair. It shone with nearly purple highlights in the lamplight. "Whatever you've been doing with Soul, keep doing it. Just be careful."

"I'm not doing anything-" Maka squeaked.

"Not that kind of doing!" Tsubaki laughed. "Black Star doesn't miss much, you know. He's seen your hands and he's seen the tiny cuts on Soul's neck. Why do you think he gave you the knife?"

"Mae West?" Maka said, blinking.

"Yes. He knew you were going to do something stupid."

"It's not stupid," Maka muttered, throwing all her brushes into her grooming kit and practically snatching Aka's lead rope. He threw up his head in protest at her rough movements and she sighed and patted him on the neck reluctantly.

"It's pretty stupid if it is what we think," Tsubaki corrected, quite unperturbed at her friend's sulky tone.

The woman was as placid as the moon and just as untouchable. It was infuriating; why was calm so easy for her, in the face of news like this? If it were Black Star sitting mad and helpless under her dark sword, Tsubaki wouldn't be so unaffected. She'd be screaming and bellowing and fighting everything and everyone, just like Maka wanted to do. For a moment Maka almost wanted to throw a tantrum, but she reined it in, settling for stomping her feet as they left the horses. "It's not stupid and you two are far too observant for your own good," she said sharply.

"Just be careful, understand?" Tsubaki said, just as forcefully, her warrior heart coming through. "I know you want to rescue Soul but trust me, there are other people out there who need you just as much."

Maka rubbed her temples and opened the door to Tsubaki's wagon perhaps a little harder than was strictly necessary. She was exhausted and yet her mind wouldn't allow her to rest that night as she tossed and turned on the floor. Instead it kept running in circles, kept forcing her to glance at her scythe, gleaming innocently in the corner. Finally she got up and threw a shirt over the blade before returning to her nest of blankets.

Tsubaki shifted and murmured something drowsily. "It's all right, go back to sleep," Maka hushed. One of them, at least, should get some rest. Maka stared at the ceiling all night long, rubbing her thumb over the scabs on her hand and trying not to suffocate under the burden of Soul, of his precious laughter and his hidden gentle heart and the feel of his arms around her. Her scythe may have been covered, but it laughed at her anyway with the tearful face of justice.

* * *

FOOTNOTES

1: The major arcana is 22 of the 78 cards in a tarot deck. They're sort of considered the more 'powerful' part, but that's a huge simplification. The reading Jacqueline did is wildly simplified and probably super incorrect; tarot reading is a complicated art and my research basically confused the hell out of me. The cards are real, however, as are the meanings (sort of, ish) that she took from them. Basically I'm no expert so don't quote me.

2: St. Cross is a real monastery in France. It's just a random one I chose for the lovely architecture.

* * *

**Author says**: Hey guys, I'm so sorry this took so long! I've been really busy with my ResBang story. Thank you so much for reading and all your wonderful reviews! They really mean a lot to me! :) This story is sort of a labor of love so it's nice to know people are out there actually enjoying it!


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